Alfian Sa’at is a resident playwright with Wild Rice. His published works include two collections of poetry _One Fierce Hour_ and _A History of Amnesia_, two collections of short stories _Corridor_ and _Malay Sketches_, as well as two collections of plays. In 2001, he won the Golden Point Award for Poetry and received the Young Artist Award. Alfian has been nominated six times for Best Script at the Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards, eventually winning in 2005 for his play, ‘Landmarks’, and in 2010 for his play, ‘Nadirah’. Intro: This next poem that I am going to read is called “The Portrait of a Sentenced Library” and it was written for my second collection of poetry which is called a _History of Amnesia_ (2001). What inspired this poem was basically the announcement I think around ’98 or ‘99 that the old National Library was going to be torn down. There was a groundswell of public dissent but obviously the government stuck to its particular redevelopment plans, and that like we had to finally make way for a tunnel. So of course I was very affected by this loss, of what I considered a dear national institution. It was a very humble looking building and it was claimed without any architectural merit but of course it was a house full of people’s memories, so this is that poetic response to that. The Portrait of a Sentenced Library by Alfian Sa’at So these bricks will be torn down And books will still not have learnt To spread their feathers and fly Like pigeons from a shaken tree So this balustrade will be dismantled Perhaps reassembled somewhere else – A conch paperweight by my head is a beach. Each hour from a postcard Big Ben chimes. This is the logic of nostalgia – This is what I mean when I say That my memory is selfish. Who can guarantee that roaming Through a tunnel I will find again The Children’s Section, where a boy walked With ‘the Little Prince’ in his hands, His smile the first line of a novel Neither of us had read before? One cymbal left in Chinatown. Blueprints and forums and rhetoric ensure That a firecracker makes no sound. So the shattered glass of Van Kleef Aquarium Still magnifies the eyelashes of students. So the ragged screen of Capitol Cinema Still shudders as a Pontianak drips black blood. Only in dreams. Under separate stars. I had one last night; of sitting at S-11 With the usual bunch of affectionate liars, Skinny artists, red-eyed dreamers, When suddenly a book appeared in the sky Like a carrier pigeon that had escaped From the ruins of the library. It landed, without a murmur, On my shoulder. I opened that book, Expecting a cry for help, a refugee's plea. What I found instead was this poem That did not know how to end. Only when.