Merry Christmas in verse: Singapore poets on taxes and the holidays
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
(Clockwise from top left) Lee Tzu Pheng, Yong Shu Hoong, Marylyn Tan, Theophilus Kwek, Aaron Maniam and Wahid Al Mamun have penned poetry about taxes and Christmas.
PHOTOS: BENEDICT LAU, DANIEL SIM, ARTS HOUSE LIMITED, MARYLYN TAN, ST FILE, AFTERIMAGE
SINGAPORE – The Straits Times has a tradition of commissioning works from literary writers for Christmas. For 2025, we have asked six poets to give their take on taxes and Christmas, inspired by the year’s headline-grabbing topic of tariffs and trade for the season associated with gift-giving and shopping.
The poets range in genres and ages, from writers who have just debuted their collections to a lauded Cultural Medallion recipient.
Here are their poetic offerings, ST’s gifts to readers in this season of merrymaking.
TAXMAN by Lee Tzu Pheng
Poet Anne Lee Tzu Pheng.
PHOTO: BENEDICT LAU
Anne Lee Tzu Pheng, 79, is a Cultural Medallion recipient and a former associate professor in English Literature at the National University of Singapore. She is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently Common Life: Drawings And Poems (2018).
In 2014, she was on the inaugural list of 108 women inducted into the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame.
Balancing Act by Yong Shu Hoong
Yong Shu Hoong has won the Singapore Literature Prize thrice.
PHOTO: DANIEL SIM, ARTS HOUSE LIMITED
Yong Shu Hoong, 59, has won the Singapore Literature Prize thrice: for Frottage (2005), The Viewing Party (2013) and Anatomy Of A Wave (2022). He is the author of seven poetry collections and a co-author of collaborative works, The Adopted: Stories From Angkor (2015), Lost Bodies: Poems Between Portugal and Home (2016) and Lilla Torg: A Scandinavian Journey (2023). Currently the festival director of Singapore Writers Festival, he teaches part-time in the English department at Nanyang Technological University.
you can call me that if you want by Marylyn Tan
Marylyn Tan is the first female poet to win the 2020 Singapore Literature Prize.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF MARYLYN TAN
Marylyn Tan, 32, is the first female poet to win the 2020 Singapore Literature Prize for her 2018 debut collection, Gaze Back. The collection, which she describes as the “lesbo Singaporean trans-genre witch grimoire you never knew you needed”, was shortlisted for the 2019 Lambda Literary Awards. She was a featured writer in the recently concluded Singapore Writers Festival.
If We Can Have It by Theophilus Kwek
Poet Theophilus Kwek is the first Singaporean to win the Cikada Prize.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Theophilus Kwek, 31, has published five full-length collections of poetry, most recently Commonwealth (2025). His Circle Line (2013) and Giving Ground (2016) were both shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize.
In 2023, he was the youngest writer and the first Singaporean to be awarded the Cikada Prize by the Swedish Institute, given to an East Asian poet for poetry that “defends the inviolability of life”.
Advent Calendar For Troubled Times by Aaron Maniam
Poet Aaron Maniam researches and teaches at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Academic and poet Aaron Maniam, 46, has published two collections of poetry. The first, Morning At Memory’s Border (2005), was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize.
Today, the former civil servant researches and teaches at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government.
Walking Down Canal Street, New Orleans by Wahid Al Mamun
Poet Wahid Al Mamun is working on a PhD in anthropology at McGill University in Canada.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF AFTERIMAGE
Wahid Al Mamun, 28, is a poet whose debut collection, What God Took Your Legs Away, was published by Afterimage in 2025. He is working on his PhD in anthropology at McGill University in Canada.
