Pooja Nansi

Pooja Nansi (born 1981) is a Singaporean poet, musician and educator.

Pooja Nansi
Born(1981-11-27)November 27, 1981
OccupationPoet, Musician, Educator
LanguageEnglish, Malay
NationalitySingaporean

Biography

Pooja Nansi was born in Gujarat, India in 1981. Her family moved to Singapore when she was one and a half years old. She is the oldest of two daughters.

She grew up in Katong and attended Telok Kurau Primary School and CHIJ Katong Convent from 1988 - 1997.[1] She wanted to be a teacher from a young age and would teach her dolls as a child.[2] She attended the National University of Singapore and started teaching upon graduation.

She taught at Temasek Junior College for nine years and held the position of head of Language Arts and English Literature for part of her time there.[3] She was a writer-in residence at Nanyang Technological University (2015-2016) and currently teaches creative writing part-time.[4][5]

Literary career

Pooja Nansi was first inspired to write her own poetry upon her first encounter with Sylvia Plath's poem, Daddy, in a school library. It was the first time the 13-year-old felt she was allowed to have strong feelings, such as anger, in her writing.[1] Her creative influences include old Bollywood songs,[6] hip-hop artists such as Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg,[7] pop music such as Britney Spears and Elton John, and poets such as Cyril Wong and Leonard Cohen.[8][9] Her work is combination of poetry, music and performance. She disagrees with being defined as a performance or page poet as she believes that poetry can exist in multiple ways without the need for distinction.[10]

While a university student, she attended Word Forward's poetry slam at Zouk, a nightclub in Singapore, and discovered slam poetry and spoken word. She met other contemporaries such as poets Marc Nair and Ng Yi-Sheng and musician Bani Haykal during this time. She published her first poetry collection, Stiletto Scars, in 2007 under Word Forward's publishing arm.

In 2009, she formed a spoken word and music duo with actress-singer, Anjana Srinivasan. They called themselves the Mango Dollies. Most of the poems she wrote in this collaboration were documented in her second collection, Love is an Empty Barstool (Math Paper Press, 2014).[11]

In 2013, she started Speakeasy, a monthly poetry reading featuring both performance and page poets. She created the platform to bring both communities together.[1] Speakeasy ran for five years until the host venue closed and she decided not to relocate the event.

In 2016, she received the Young Artist Award and was named Singapore's first Youth Poet Ambassador (YPA). During her YPA tenure, she conceptualised the Other Tongues Festival, a literary festival of minority voices with programmer Shridar Mani.[12] The inaugural festival will run in December 2018.

In 2018, Nansi was announced as the new director of Singapore Writers Festival from 2019, taking over the position from poet Yeow Kai Chai.[13]

Works
Poetry
Year Title Notes
2007 Stiletto Scars Published by Word Forward. ISBN 978-981-05-9625-5
2014 Love is an Empty Barstool Published by Math Paper Press. ISBN 978-981-07-7716-6
Non-Fiction
Year Title Notes
2014 Local Anaesthetic: A Painless Approach to Singaporean Poetry Published by Ethos Books. ISBN 978-981-09-0415-9
Editorial
Year Title Notes
2014 SingPoWriMo 2014: The Anthology Published by Math Paper Press. ISBN 978-981-09-2652-6
Performances
Year Title Director Produced By Venue Notes
2016 You Are Here Joel Tan Kalaa Utsavam - Indian Festival of Arts Singapore. Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, 18 & 19 November
2018 Thick Beats for Good Girls Huzir Sulaiman Produced by Checkpoint Theatre. Drama Centre Black Box, 5 April – 22 April. Co-written with Jessica Bellamy.

References
  1. "'Angry Indian poet? I'll take it': Singaporean writer Pooja Nansi speaks up". Channel NewsAsia. Archived from the original on 2017-12-09. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  2. "Why this local poet doesn't want to be called Indian Singaporean". 2016-02-14. Archived from the original on 2017-08-09. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  3. "Singapore's first Youth Poet Ambassador announced today". TODAYonline. Archived from the original on 2017-06-08. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  4. hermes (2015-08-09). "Three writers join NTU programme". The Straits Times. Archived from the original on 2016-03-02. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  5. "Faculty and Staff". www.soh.ntu.edu.sg. Archived from the original on 2018-03-20. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  6. "20 Questions Artist Interview with Pooja Nansi". Creative Arts Social. 2017-10-18. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  7. "Talking hip-hop with Jessica Bellamy and Pooja Nansi, the minds behind Thick Beats For Good Girls". Talking hip-hop with Jessica Bellamy and Pooja Nansi, the minds behind Thick Beats For Good Girls | Editorial | Bandwagon - Live music, bands and concert guide for Singapore, Manila and Jakarta. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  8. "Pooja Nansi's Takeover of SWF: A Win for Singapore's Art Scene". Archived from the original on 2018-11-03. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  9. "QLRS - Interviews : Proust Questionnaire: 17 questions with Pooja Nansi | Vol. 14 No. 4 Oct 2015". www.qlrs.com. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  10. "Profile: Pooja Nansi". The A List Singapore. 2016-02-16. Archived from the original on 2016-04-22. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  11. By. "Pooja Nansi". Archived from the original on 2018-12-01. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  12. "'Other Tongues': Youth Poet Ambassador Pooja Nansi is launching a literary festival of minority voices". Retrieved 2018-12-01.
  13. "Pooja Nansi's Takeover of SWF: A Win for Singapore's Art Scene - Popspoken". Popspoken. 2018-11-02. Archived from the original on 2018-12-01. Retrieved 2018-12-01.
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