Gen Z poet turns to World War II for inspiration in debut collection

Chim Sher Ting's first full-fledged collection, Burn After Dawn, contains 35 poems about the Japanese Occupation

- Clement Yong

For those still harboring illusions of Singapore as a nation with no history, poet Chim Sher Ting has an eloquent rebuttal, tucked in the final line of her debut collection, Burn After Dawn: "You don't know how much I'm coming from."

Despite her youth, the 27-year-old doctor at a public hospital has chosen as her subject the Japanese Occupation of Singapore from 1942 to 1945 for her first full-fledged volume of works.

A total of 35 poems are dedicated to the self-confessed "heavy" topic: charred bodies, a return to Japanese-issued banana money and Cairnhill, Pulau Bukom – the forgotten names of stations in Singapore that once housed comfort women.

It was a period Chim says she rediscovered while in university in Australia, after social studies textbooks that were "too detached and academic" failed to pique her interest when she was younger.

Living on her own in an Anglo-centric country, she made a conscious effort to familiarize herself with Singapore's heritage. Once back, she scurried around soliciting memories, diving headfirst into the national archives and visiting war memorials.

"There's this huge part of history that we don't talk much about, but is very real for those who went through it," she says over Zoom.