ABSTRACT
In 1950 Wang Gungwu would eventually publish, with Beda Lim's assistance, his first and only poetry collection, Pulse. This chapter unfolds the Wang's story about the catalyzing force of modernist verse and his stubborn resistance towards subjecting his own poetry to British scrutiny illustrates the conjunctures between Singaporean literature and the emerging academic field of global modernism. It examines direct and oblique references or allusions to Anglo-American modernist texts in the work of Wang Gungwu, Lloyd Fernando, and Lydia Kwa. Singaporean writers' dialogue with Anglo-American modernism is simultaneously a cultural engagement with the nation-state's postcolonial modernity—or "hypermodernity". Wang Gungwu's Pulse was published in 1950 before Singapore became an independent country in 1965. Wang recalls that the persecution of the University Socialist Club was "a message from the colonial government that [they] were not even allowed that sort of political discussion" at the university.
