Performing National Service in Singapore: (Re)imagining Nation in the Poetry and Short Stories of Alfian Sa’at

Poon attempts to make the case for interrogating fixed notions of the nation by tracing out competing narratives of discursive national formation by mounting a critique from within rather than only from without. By turning to the poetry of Alfian Sa'at, a writer who is said to perform a kind of national service as he addresses the political and cultural realities of life in Singapore, Poon makes a case for problematizing the state's construction of nation.