Reading his poems in public isn't Shahril Nizam's favourite thing to do, but he's making more of an effort to be seen and heard now that he has published his first book (of illustrated poems).
Even before the book (If Only), Shahril had a following thanks to his blog on which he posted his work, (he recently wiped the site clean for reasons even he isn’t entirely clear about, but thinks he’ll start posting again soon), but he tended to avoid poetry readings. He’s reading quite regularly now – most recently at WayangKata IV, No Black Tie’s regular poetry gig.
Finding the right language
SHY is the adjective that keeps popping up whenever Shahril Nizam is mentioned. Sometimes it’s said with a squeal, especially by women, who then get the same look that appears in their eyes when they talk about babies or small, helpless animals.
What is it about a shy guy? Girls either want to marry them or mother them. Sometimes both! Throw a creative streak into the mix and it’s a foolproof recipe for jellied knees garnished with a handful of fluttering eyelashes.
But poets are propositioned all the time, aren’t they? In some circles, a poet is like a rock star, complete with groupies, fan mail and marriage proposals.
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Aww, isn’t he ‘shy’ personified?
Shahril Nizam, poet, artist, shy
guy. – KAMAL SELLEHUDDIN /
The Star |
It’s true that those who wax lyrical about Shahril tend to be those who have spoken to him one-on-one, not just gazed upon him from afar. He’s not just quiet, there’s a stillness about him that renders him almost invisible in a crowd.
On stage, his eyes are fixed almost entirely on the open page before him. He reads – from If Only, his recently published book of poems – clearly, with impeccable diction, in a voice you could never in a million years imagine screaming insults or uttering profanities. As a performer, he doesn’t blow you away. He’s pleasant, that’s all.
But when you have a conversation with him, he thinks before he speaks, which gives you that wonderful feeling of being listened to seriously. Here’s someone who actually considers questions and delivers real answers, not sound bites practiced in front of a mirror (the problem with a lot of young artistes). There’s eye contact, too! No wonder people are smitten.
Shahril looks somewhat abashed when his shyness is mentioned.
“I sometimes wonder how much of it is actual shyness and how much is a sort of mask I wear,” he says. “I think the temptation is to use it as an excuse. I say I’m shy and it covers a multitude of sins. Maybe it even saves me from having to make the effort.”
He is making an effort, though. He used to avoid poetry readings but does them quite regularly now, most recently at WayangKata IV, the latest instalment of the British Council/Troubagangers-organised poetry nights at No Black Tie in Kuala Lumpur.
“Well, I self-published my book so I should try to sell it,” he says, looking uncomfortable. At the event on Wednesday, when someone mentioned that Shahril is one of their favourite poets, he looked like he wanted to run and hide!
“I feel like a fraud ? I’m not comfortable being called a poet,” the 28-year-old tells me when we meet later in the week.
“I dabble in poetry and I published a book, but it’s self-published. Anyone can self-publish.
“I think I still have a long way to go. I’m relatively young and I haven’t experienced enough in life to produce work of real merit. You need to have had a few knocks before you can say you’ve lived.”
Shahril had wanted to publish just his illustrations, but friends thought that the book would have wider appeal if it included his verses.
“Someone told me that the poems don’t really stand on their own,” he says when asked if he considers himself more of an artist or a writer.
“I suppose they have a point. Drawing comes more naturally to me – I find it harder to write because writing takes more focus and concentration. I’m lazy and tend to lose my focus.
“When I draw, my mind can disconnect and I can still do it. It’s almost subconscious.” (Which, perhaps, explains to some extent the clearly fantastical nature of his art.)
For him, it’s a matter of finding the right “language” with which to express himself.
“Drawing and writing are just ways of externalising thoughts and ideas,” he says.
“But I find it hard to be direct all the time. Maybe that’s true of everyone. Sometimes we are open and sometimes secretive ? even with ourselves. Sometimes, there are things we don’t truly understand or even want to admit. That doesn’t mean we can’t be honest, too.
“I find writing a poem or drawing a picture allows me to be honest without revealing too much. The imagery, symbolism and so on can mean anything. And it can mean one thing to one person and another to someone else. It can be different truths to different people.”
Although he didn’t grow up reading poetry, he discovered many of his favourite poets while at university (he studied at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Australia).
During the interview, he opens his bag and takes out a stack of books. There’s John Keats, Edna St Vincent Millay, Ogden Nash, W.H. Auden, C.P. Cavafy and Sapho.
It was also while at uni that he wrote his first poems. “They were inspired by someone I fancied,” he grins. Love is still a favourite theme.
The illustrations in If Only, which reference a myriad of styles and artists (from Edward Gorey to John Everett Millais), elicit responses as varied as “Cute!” to “Weird!” to wide-eyed silence to “Ooo, I’ll have four copies, please, since Christmas is coming”.
The artists he admires include Tamara de Lempicka, Tsuguharu Foujita and Robert Crumb. And his favourite illustrators are Quentin Blake and Tove Jansson; the latter is the creator of the Moomins, and Shahril shares the Finnish artist’s whimsical style.
“I wonder how much her environment had to do with the work she produced,” he muses. (Jansson lived with her partner on a lonely island off the coast of Finland.)
“You know, as city dwellers we are limited to the urban landscape. I think so much of what we produce is a product of interplay between our surroundings and us. It would be interesting to see what I would come up with if I didn’t live in a city.”
Shahril lives in the middle of Kuala Lumpur (“In the thick of things”). Quite unbelievably, he was once a bank officer, an experience he describe as “character building”.
These days, he works as a freelance graphics designer. And goes clubbing to release stress: dancing is something he loves.
He draws all the time, but finds he works best in the dead of night. “It kinda comes together then. That’s when everything you’ve seen and felt during the day is distilled into intense feeling that, hopefully, gets translated into something you can put down on paper.”
He did not always want to be an artist, he says. “I was not keen on art until after I had finished secondary school and found out that I pretty much sucked at everything else.
“At first, I wanted to be a doctor! But I couldn’t apply myself at all.”
Shahril doesn’t think he inherited his artistic abilities: mum and dad, who can “only draw stick figures”, stduied accountancy while his siblings (he’s the second of four) are a teacher, doctor and dentist. But he believes that everyone is talented in some way.
“It’s not just about art. Being creative can take different paths. You can be creative with numbers. You need imagination to figure people out.”
He says his main aim when he writes and draws is to communicate. “That’s what most people want to do anyway – be heard.”
As a writer and artist, he is moved by experiences, especially new experiences, or even the way different people react differently to the same things.
“Life is so interesting and fascinating, it makes me want to find new ways of expressing how I feel about it and how I respond to the world and people.”
Review of "If Only" next week
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If Only (For Love)
IF our hearts
Were to meet,
Let them fall at my feet,
For I’d gain
With good measure,
All my pain for this pleasure –
And I
Shall embrace,
The grim and the grace;
Our earth
And the ether;
The nay and the nether –
Through life’s
shifting dunes,
Or time’s passing moons
I’d take
This fair journey,
For love and love only.
– From page 137, If Only (Gores Press, 140 pages, ISBN: 978-9834348809)
i got If Only for my birthday present recently and i must say this is one of the best gifts ive ever had..it is just beautiful and intensely personal..i just carry this book whereever i go..Thank u Mr.Nizam..
Posted by: alina | Friday, December 28, 2007 at 10:17