Soon after being retrograded into active retirement, a relentless hunter after Victoriana surfaced out of the Internet to rope me into raking my memory of old school days. Nothing was farther away from my thoughts than the "solitary" turban-turning memories I entertained of the old school. In less than a year-and-a-half, we – Chung Chee Min (a former school laureate, later a teacher, and now one of the school webmasters) and I — had chalked up over 1500 small-print pages in correspondence over old school mates, teachers, and other Tom Brown school-type reminiscences. Our correspondence focussed on the numerous "official" careers of the old boys and girls from the Victoria Institution, the vaunted premier school of the country. They all smacked of the odour of success in public life: straight, square, solid, with squire-like stolid citizen success stories. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but I was put off by the odour of goodness and sweetness that pervaded all their fragrant memories. "Look, what a pretty boy I am, Mummy Victoria! Obedient! Clean! I have done all my homework for the week, and …" that sort of achievement.

Anyway, where are we? And how did I get to talking about so many fudgy things? All I wanted to do is to introduce these "whacky" vignettes. Oh, yes! I remember, we are supposed to thump-thump the old alma mater tub! If you read the vignettes, you’d see that I’m not much good at that sort of a thing. I’m sorry, I’m not exactly the guy – and mostly in the eyes of "patriotic" Victorians – to be recalling my life and those of the robust body of eminent government and professional men who had borne the reputation of the old school far and wide and long into their lives.

The first vignette truly explains how I managed to get admitted to the school. I was born in the middle of the year, which means that I was six and a half before I could be admitted to Primary One in Singapore. To those who are not familiar with the system, let me say that Primary One and Two were in fact the Kinder Garten years. In pre-War Singapore and Malaya, these classes were, in actual fact, a euphemism for the Garderie d’enfants, the French phrase meaning "day nursery" [or rather a dépôt de munitions/ordures (ammunition/rubbish dump)] for children, watched over by a matron who kept them amused by making them sing songs like "Baaa Baaa Black Sheep/ Have you any wool/ Yes, Sir, Yes Sir, three bags full/ One for my Master/ And One for My Maid/ And One for the Little Boy/ Who…….????" [lives down the lane.] We were also provided with coloured pencils to make drawings of birds and animals, tables and chairs, flowers and trees, and even taught to sew simple patterns on little pillow-covers with coloured thread.

Twenty three of the thirty-one propositions of the "Disquisitions on Poietics", together with the articles on the poïetics of the "pantun", in French, and the "Yijing" first appeared in the Journal of Comparative Poïetics, Vol. II, n° 1 (Paris), 1992. The article on "Gerard Sekoto" and the account of "Aintinai: la théorie de cinq paysages" appeared in JCL, Vol. I, n° 2 & 3 (Paris), 1991. An earlier version of the propositions XXIV to XXXI of the "Disquisitions on Poïetics" first appeared in Breaking Out: A Critical Miscellany in 1999. Here, in this volume, the disquisitions have been brought up to date and revised. The Mobipocket eBook version does not contain the same number of articles or some of the arguments either.

The second part of the book consists of seven articles/critiques and an interview - on various subjects and whose main purpose was to examine the nature of creativity through each of the topics discussed. As such, what follows the disquisitions proper has been entitled: Further Explorations into the Art of Creation.

Even if the author has found it necessary to debunk the way the subject of poïetics has been treated and/or managed in France (cf. Chapter I: "The Exotic in Aesthetics: A Case Study of Poïetics as the Science and Philosophy of Creation"), and almost subscribes - with certain mostly unexpressed reservations - to a heretical overview of the subject’s future research possibilities, he is nonetheless aware of the intrinsically fundamental properties of the ontological approach he has undertaken right from the start and which over time has led him to exploit the subject for a more general and encompassing overview of life as revealed by the ancient Chinese Canon of Changes, the Yijing.

The insights he has gained by a long and personal experience of this book has convinced him of the validity of his convictions and propositions. The substratum of his ideas is therefore to be found in the basic concept of the unfolding year in temperate climes. No book that can foretell the future and advise the inquirer on how to avoid disaster may be ignored. He is convinced that countless generations of Chinese have by the application of rigorous scientific method and inquiry obtained the results that have been fused into the imagery and dicta of the hexagrams and moving lines of the book. It is only by patiently sifting through observable phenomena and collating an infinite number of data, made available through minute observation of Nature in all its unfolding, paradigmatic and cyclical aspects, have these savant Taoists been able to put together a concise statement of the science and/or philosophy of the course of human life on Earth. That the language in which these repetitive behavioural patterns are couched sometimes or mosttimes eludes proper evaluation and interpretation is a matter for education and application. Nothing is for free in life. If one wants to benefit from advice, one has first to be able to find the right wavelength which enables one to listen with humility. And this is no easy chore as far as the book is concerned. And, unfortunately for some, the wondrous music of poesy may even then fall on hardened ears!

In the Yijing, the ancient Chinese had already expounded, as far as the author is concerned, the secrets of the very art of creation which takes the world for its laboratory and life in all its forms as the vehicle of its art form. The present book on poïetics can only serve as a signpost for the very first and ultimate book on the subject.                                                           

 T.Wignesan

Paris, July 5, 2007