This book surveys poems written in the English language from 1900 to 1962, by poets from or based in Malaya and Singapore.
The poets express their emotions through images that are telling in their vitality. Their flexibility with the English language allows them to express their felt experiences, where the language becomes a creative medium in the hands of non-native users of the language. The aim of the poets was to break up conventional modes of perception of English literary convention, with idioms and images from this region – along with the inclusion of colloquial Malay and loan words from Chinese dialects, Indian and Arabic languages, allusions to various mythologies and heroes from the Malacca Sultanate. In an era of rising nationalism, the poets had to find words and images to state their anticolonial feelings without being explicit.
Among the poets surveyed are Lim Boon Keng, Hedwig Anuar, Edwin Thumboo and Wong Phui Nam.