A neighbourhood containing Singapore’s oldest public housing estates, a catchphrase for the dream of equitable distribution, the long tail of the British Empire: the word ‘Commonwealth’ uncovers rich seams of history, replete with conquests, tragedies and once-potent visions of the future. Commonwealth takes as its starting-point the massive Bukit Ho Swee fires of the 196os – an event as deeply seared into the history of Kwek’s family as the nation’s own – and traces the dislocations and relocations that have come before it, and in its wake.

 

Kwek’s earlier poetry collections dealt with questions of personal rootedness and larger-scale displacement; still formally adept, Commonwealth is a new departure, drawing on a wide array of documentary and oral history sources to address upheavals of individual and collective lives within one of the world’s most densely populated cities.