Do poets still have a place in Singapore, was the quizzical response to my essay, A Luxury We Can Now Afford. This was an Afterword to a just published Omnibus edition combining two earlier "anthologies of Singapore poetry" - A Luxury We Cannot Afford (2014) and A Luxury We Must Afford (2016).

Obviously, the editors and poet-contributors believe that poetry (and hence poets) must be afforded a place in Singapore. That imperative "must" suggests both might not have a place still. And that founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew's remark in 1968, "poetry is a luxury we cannot afford", then adding "technical education is more important", influentially encouraged a dismissal of poetry as being unnecessary in the new republic.