{{short description|Singaporean poet, writer and painter}} {{for|the Filipino politician|Arthur C. Yap}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}} {{Infobox writer | name = Arthur Yap (叶纬雄) | image = ArthurYap.jpg | imagesize = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = Arthur Yap Chioh Hiong | birth_date = 1943 | birth_place = | death_date = {{death date|df=y|2006|6|19}} (aged 63) | death_place = | occupation = Poet, Pedagogue | nationality = Singapore | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notableworks = | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | awards = '''1976''': Poetry award by the National Book Development Council of Singapore<br>'''1983''':Cultural Medallion for Literature<br>South-East Asian Write Award, Bangkok | signature = | website = }} {{family name hatnote|Yap|lang=Chinese}}
'''Arthur Yap Chioh Hiong''' ({{zh|s=叶纬雄|zh|t=葉緯雄|p=Yè Wěi Xióng}}; 1943 – 19 June 2006) was a Singaporean poet, writer and painter.
==Biography== Arthur Yap was born in Singapore, the sixth child of a carpenter and a housewife. Yap attended St Andrew's School and the University of Singapore, after which he won a British Council scholarship to study at the University of Leeds in England. At Leeds Arthur earned a master's degree in Linguistics and English Language Teaching, later obtaining his PhD from the National University of Singapore in the years after he returned from Leeds. He stayed on in the university's Department of English Language and Literature as a lecturer between the years 1979 and 1998. Between 1992 and 1996, Yap served as a mentor with the Creative Arts Programme run by the Ministry of Education to help inspire students and nurture young writers at local secondary schools and junior colleges. Yap was then diagnosed with lung cancer, and received radiotherapy treatment.<ref name="words">{{cite news|last=Yap|first=Stephanie|title=Poet of the interior|location=Singapore|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=6 April 2008}}</ref> Yap was known to be an intensely private man.<ref>{{cite news|title=Private Poet|url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19881011-1.2.10.6.aspx|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=11 October 1988|access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref>
==Poetry== Yap's poetry is distinctive for an unusual linguistic playfulness and subtlety that is able to bridge the rhythms of Singlish with the precision of acrolectic English. Unsurprisingly, the craft of Yap's voice has the admiration of other writers. Anthony Burgess has written that he encountered ''Down the Line'' "with elation and occasional awe",<ref>{{cite news|title= Too much Eliot and alas, no Ulysses|url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19830809-1.2.140.10.1.aspx|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=9 August 1983|access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref> while D. J. Enright has praised Yap's "sophisticated cosmopolitan intelligence"{{Citation needed|date=August 2014}}. The ''Oxford Companion to 20th-Century Poetry'' describes Yap's poems as "original, but... demanding: elliptical, dense, dry, sometimes droll. At their best, they shuttle between playfulness and sobriety and are alert to the rhythms and contours of the natural and the peopled landscape, seasoning insight with compassion."{{Citation needed|date=August 2014}}
His first collection of poems ''Only Lines'' was published in 1971, when he was 28. It had a first print run of 2,000 to 3,000 copies.<ref>{{cite news|title=1976|url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19820901-1.2.118.2.8.aspx|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=1 September 1982|access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref> Its whimsical, wordplay-based humour captured the hearts of poetry lovers,<ref>{{cite news|title= Spontaneous feeling that comes right from the heart|url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19800706-1.2.109.17.2.aspx|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=6 July 1980|access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref> and it won the first poetry award from the National Book Development Council of Singapore in 1976. An analysis of the poems from ''Only Lines'' finds moments of both celebration and apology for the power of the written word. At times he begins his verses as if in mid-conversation with the reader: {{quotation|''should i also add:<br>here are only lines<br>linked by the same old story.<br>the same old plot<br>in which they are grown''}} The pun on the word 'plot' in this passage, denoting both a storyline and a piece of land, suggests a dimensionality in the language that belies the dismissive adjective 'only'.
Other signature features of Yap's poems include his choice of simple words, and the use of all-lowercase style favoured by American poet E. E. Cummings.
Yap's second collection ''Commonplace'' was published in 1977. The third collection, ''Down The Line'' (1980) was acclaimed and won Yap his second Book Council Award. In 1983, Yap was honored with Singapore's Cultural Medallion for Literature and the South-East Asian Write Award in Bangkok. Yap described this as one of the high points in his literary career.<ref>{{cite news|title=Winners have their say|url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19831111-1.2.156.7.aspx|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=11 November 1983|access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref> Translations of his books were published in many Asian countries, mainly in the Japanese, Mandarin and Malay languages. In 1988, Yap won his third Book Council Award for ''Man Snake Apple & Other Poems'' (1986).
One of Yap's short stories was included in ''Singapore Short Stories'', which was used worldwide for the 'O' Levels from 1991 to 1992.<ref>{{cite news|title=Cambridge picks second S'pore book as O-level text|url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19890604-1.2.24.1.aspx|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=4 June 1989|access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref> Yap's poems 'In Passing', about the restlessness of the modern world, and 'Old House at Ann Siang Hill' were included in ''The Calling of Kindred: Poems from the English-speaking World'', a poetry anthology prescribed for the 'O' Levels in Singapore from 1996 to 1997. His poems also have been included in a literature course offered by McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and collected in anthologies like ''New Voices of the Commonwealth'', ''The Flowering Tree'' and ''The Second Tongue: An Anthology of Poetry from Malaysia and Singapore''.<ref>{{cite news|title= He holds up mirrors ... |url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19820530-1.2.124.aspx|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=30 May 1982|access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref> Selected poems of his are on the reading lists of West Virginia University and New York University Sydney.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Sin|first1=Yuen|title=Who's afraid of 'chao ah beng'? Overseas universities use Singaporean literature to teach|url=http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/education/whos-afraid-of-chao-ah-beng-overseas-universities-use-singaporean-literature-to|access-date=15 February 2016|agency=The Straits Times|publisher=Singapore Press Holdings|date=15 February 2016}}</ref> Yap also served as the general editor of literary magazine ''Singa'', first published in 1981.<ref>{{cite news|title= Journal looking for local literary talent|url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19830128-1.2.74.aspx|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=28 January 1983|access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title= Make the lion roar|url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19830702-1.2.144.10.1.aspx|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=2 July 1983|access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title= Enter Singa, the pride of Spore's writers |url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19810104-1.2.73.1.aspx|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=4 January 1981|access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref>
In 1998, Yap received the Montblanc-NUS Centre for the Arts Literary Award for English.
A selection from each of Yap's previous books was compiled in ''The Space of City Trees: Selected Poems'' published in 2000. Extracts from ''The Space of City Trees'' were subsequently published in ''The Straits Times''' Life! Books section.<ref name="words"/> NUS Press published ''The collected poems of Arthur Yap''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nus.edu.sg/nuspress/subjects/lit/978-9971-69-653-5.html |title= The collected poems of Arthur Yap |publisher=NUS Press |year=2013 |access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref> and ''Noon at five o'clock'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nus.edu.sg/nuspress/subjects/lit/978-9971-69-791-4.html |title= Noon at five o'clock |publisher=NUS Press |year=2013 |access-date=20 August 2014}}</ref> a collection of his short stories, in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Yap's paintings decorated both book covers.
In 2015, ''Down the Line'' was selected by ''The Business Times'' as one of the Top 10 English Singapore books from 1965 to 2015, alongside titles by Goh Poh Seng and Daren Shiau.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Yusof|first1=Helmi|title=Tomes that show us how we live|url=http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/lifestyle/tomes-that-show-us-how-we-live|website=The Business Times|date=January 2015 |publisher=Singapore Press Holdings|access-date=5 January 2015}}</ref>
==Painting== Yap was also a painter. His passion for painting began in 1967 when he was working as a Pre-University English Literature teacher at the Serangoon Gardens English School. During the weekends he would pick up the brush, expressing himself through his abstract works of art. On 13 April 1969 Arthur Yap held his first solo art exhibition featuring 44 square abstract paintings at the National Library in Stamford Road.<ref name="weekend">{{cite news|title=One-man show by 'weekend artist'|location=Singapore|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=14 April 1969|page=4}}</ref> Yap went on to have a total of seven solo exhibitions in Singapore, as well as participating in group exhibitions in Malaysia, Thailand and Australia. Yap's paintings were also chosen to represent Singapore at the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1972.<ref name="words"/>
==Death== After a two-and-half-year battle with throat cancer, Yap died in his sleep at home on 19 June 2006. He was 63. The cancer had recurred in 2004, and Yap underwent major surgery to remove his voice box.
==Works== *''Only Lines'' (Federal Publications, 1971) *''Commonplace'' (Heinemann Educational Books, 1977) *''Down the Line'' (Heinemann Educational Books, 1980) {{ISBN|9971640023}} *''Man Snake Apple & Other Poems'' (Heinemann Asia, 1986) {{ISBN|9971641089}} *''The space of city trees: selected poems'' (Skoob, 2000) {{ISBN|1-871438-39-X}} *''The collected poems of Arthur Yap'' (NUS Press, 2013) {{ISBN|9789971696535}} *''Noon at five o'clock: the short stories of Arthur Yap'' (NUS Press, 2014) {{ISBN|9789971697914}} *''2 mothers in a hdb playground''(down the line,1980)
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/yap.html 3 poems] at thedrunkenboat.com *[http://www.qlrs.com/essay.asp?id=543 Arthur Yap: Uniquely Singaporean] at Quarterly Literary Review Singapore *[http://www.seawrite.com/ SEA Write Awards] *Yawning Bread's article on Arthur Yap: [https://web.archive.org/web/20060927144521/http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2006/yax-618.htm]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Yap, Arthur}} Category:1943 births Category:2006 deaths Category:National University of Singapore alumni Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer in Singapore Category:Singaporean people of Chinese descent Category:Singaporean poets Category:S.E.A. Write Award winners Category:Recipients of the Cultural Medallion for literature Category:Gay poets Category:Gay painters Category:Singaporean LGBTQ poets Category:Singaporean LGBTQ painters Category:20th-century Singaporean painters Category:20th-century poets Category:20th-century male writers Category:20th-century Singaporean LGBTQ people Category:20th-century Singaporean writers Category:20th-century male artists Category:21st-century Singaporean LGBTQ people Category:Alumni of the University of Leeds