Lee Tzu Pheng

Lee Tzu Pheng (May 13, 1946) is a Singaporean poet. She has five volumes of poems to her name; of these, the first three, Prospects of a Drowning(1980), Against the Next Wave, (1988) and The Brink of An Amen(1991) were winners of the National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) Award.

Life and career

Born in Singapore, Lee Tzu Pheng was educated at Raffles Girls' Secondary School. She has a Ph.D in English from the National University of Singapore from where she has recently retired as a Senior Lecturer in its English Department. She is divorced from her ex-husband, Ban Kah Choon (who was once Head of English, National University of Singapore) and has one daughter, Jane Ban Li Hian.

Style of Writing

Lee's poetry is meditative and lyrical in nature and with themes such as the individual's search for an identity and a larger unifying humanity in Against the New Wave (1988) and The Brink of an Amen (1991). Her later poetry increasingly questions faith and religion, evident in her work, Lambada by Galilee (1999). However, her most anthologised work to date is an early poem, My Country and My People (1976), which expresses her ambivalent attitude towards patriotism and nationhood. For Lee, more often than not, poetry is an expression of the poet's experiences in life.

Works

Like Edwin Thumboo, Lee is often seen as one of a generation of "nation-building" English writers in Singapore, whose work in the '50s-'70s questioned the identity of the newly independent nation. One of her early poems, "My Country, My People", was banned by the Singapore government due to fears that her reference to her "brown-skinned neighbours" would offend the Malay community of Singapore. Another early poem, "Bukit Timah, Singapore" was at one point included in an international selection of poetry for O-level literature students. Later poems heavily reference her Catholic faith.

Poetry collections

• Prospect of a Drowning (1980)
• Against the Next Wave (1988)
• The Brink of an Amen (1991)
• Lambada by Galilee & Other Surprises (1997)
• Catching connections: poems, prosexcursions, crucifictions (2012)

Awards

• National Book Development Council Of Singapore Awards for her three books
• Singapore Cultural Medallion for Literature (1985)
• Southeast Asia WRITE award (1987)
• Gabriela Mistral Award (1996)

References

Infopedia (National Library)