jovan reads 'the eleventh state' by singaporean poet yong shu hoong.

The Eleventh State

“Every act of creation begins with an act of destruction”—Pablo Picasso

Yong Shu Hoong

To start with this bull

in its most naive form,

wash drawing on stone,

is only natural. Then

the reworking, redrawing,

scrapping with the flat

of the blade, followed by

what’s described as “very

elaborate pen work” —

scrape! scraping, each time

returning to the stone,

simplifying, making flesh dis-

appear, reducing everything

to its simplest state,

where only a few traces

of wash drawing and crayon

remain on the stone,

and the bull, a whole lot

of bull emerges, and more.