[SAND]
“Writing has been ruined”
Mark NairA controversial statement, to say the least, he then went on to talk about how the creative arts were slowly becoming “homogenous”, with it slowly becoming the norm to follow trends, and “[memfy] things”.
One of the big takeaways I had from this statement is that writers and other artists need to approach things from new angles, giving a fresh perspective to issues and ideas that have been done a thousand times over. For instance, Mark Nair, our guest speaker, wrote a poem on the issue of plastic waste, something that has been covered extensively. However, his poem was still something unique and interesting, because of how he was able to take the issue and add his own fresh perspective, his own voice into it; turning it into an excellent piece of satire titled: “The Plastic Pelago”.
Issue of Plastic Waste[SHORELINE]
This session was very different from the expectations that I had for it. I personally thought that all we would be getting to hear about was his journey to where he was today, and what he might do in the future. Additionally, I didn’t know much about our speaker himself, except for that fact that he was a poet and had started an online publication called Mackarel. However, throughout the session, Nair 
talked about several things that I had not expected to hear, such as the obstacles and struggles in his path, as well as his view on things such as censorship in Singapore and racial classification, both of which were very interesting and welcome additions.
Additionally, I learned more about him and who he was as a poet and an artist. He shared a few poems with us throughout the session, all of which were unique and showed his distinct voice, ironic and sarcastic – which allowed me to better understand who he was as a person.
[SHIP]
Something that will certainly stay with me for a long time, is the sense of struggle and labor that goes into becoming a poet and an artist like Mark Nair. Throughout the entire presentation, there were implicit signals about the amount of hard work and resilience that is required in order to be successful. For instance, he mentioned how he would often do several drafts, followed by several 
revisions, all for just one poem. In fact, it took him 3 years to publish his notable book: The yellow line. Furthermore, towards the end, he explicitly talked about obstacles in his path such as the “lack of funding” and how the path to publishing was “getting harder”. His journey and story is something that I won’t forget in a hurry, not just because it is very inspiring for an aspiring writer like myself, but because it also includes these important ideas of resilience and being able to overcome obstacles.
Quick Reference to my notes:
Another great post. You’ve summarised very well his message and have shared an interesting takeaway – that of how difficult it is to be an artist in Singapore. You’ve been able to share very well his message on the labour intensiveness of art in Singapore, and his personal struggle through it. You seem to have understood the concept of resilience well, and this will serve you nicely should you pursue your passion of being a writer (hint: you should!).