Angeline Yap (b. 1959) won numerous prizes for student and undergraduate writing in the late '70s and early '80s. She has been contributing poetry to various publications in Singapore since the 1970s and has been working with the Creative Arts Programme since 1996. She is also a mentor with the Mentor Access Project, which is organised by the National Arts Council. Her Collected Poems was published in 1985. More recent anthologies containing her work are Words for the Twenty-Fifth (1990), Journeys: Words, Home & Nation -- An Anthology of Singapore Poetry (1995) and More Than Half The Sky (1998), "Memories & Desires" (1999), No Other City -- The Ethos Anthology of Urban Poetry (Feb. 2000), Rhythms -- A Singaporean Millenial Anthology of Poetry (Sep. 2000).
The poem "Nightmare" has been set to music by Leong Yoon Pin and performed at international choir competitions by the Singapore Youth Choir. Another poem, "Blue", has been set to music by Prof. Bernard Tan.
Angeline employs a variety of styles in her poetry as she believes that the form and technique used for each piece should be decided its own terms. Having said that, in writing, as in art, she has a distinct preference for the clean clear line. Poems vary widely in style and content. Some employ conventional tools of form, like rhyme and iambic meter, (see "An Old Tale" or "A Mound of Gold" at the Postimperial � Literature website). In contrast, other poems may be free flowing and a challenge to the typesetter�s craft. One such is the poem "(ii) (on a sea-weathered shard of green, bottle glass)" from the series "Revisiting Van Gogh (impressionist studies)", also at the Singapore section of the Postimperial Literature website.
presently reading: Jane Kenyon, Donald Hall, Luci Shaw
currently working with: haiku, prose poems, free verse
presently exploring /rediscovering: the music of Michael Card, & Philips Craig & Dean, the wonder of the written word (from calligraphy to type)
