OF ZOOS is an electronic literary magazine by Singaporeans for Singaporeans, and everyone else. We publish poetry and its sub-branches, or poetically sensible art (fiction, audiovisuals, etc.).

 

We believe that the poem is crafted out of a regular grammar of lines, rhyme and rhythm, as much as it is created from holes cut out in your mathematics 6A textbook (if it hasn't already been burnt) or epiphanic doodles in the margins of that office memo headed to the shredder. By the phrase “poetry and its sub-branches/poetically sensible art”, we mean (or try to mean) traditional poetic forms (from the sonnet to the villanelle to blank verse), wildly experimental forms, flash fiction pretending to be prose poems, illustrated poems, art installations professing a poetic sensibility, erasure poems blacked out from old newspapers, handwritten poems on napkins, a photograph of your dog Moxie, etc. The only thing we do not allow is plagiarised poems.

 

OF ZOOS loves literature and art; invention and tradition; artificiality and verisimilitude; ecstasy and subtlety; tenderness and the sublime. We adore paradox, the courageous metaphor, experimental voices, and the verbal (or visual!) performance of the word. We are looking for the new poem in poeticised Singlish, the next Dickinsonian dash, and Gerard Manley Hopkins set to hip hop (y'all, this must be done). We'll stand up for ideas.

 

We encourage Singaporean sensibilities not limited to Singapore, if that makes any sense. We encourage new, young, unpublished, ‘in the closet’ writers. We welcome non-Singaporeans.