« The poet must not avert his eyes! », screams Werner Herzog; reminding us in the way only he can that the call of a poet entails a duty to look, to see, not what you want to see, but what is there. Even if it makes you cry out, tear your hair out, tear, cry, even when it tears you apart. And in doing, he also never lets us forget Nietzche’s reminder of the scream (Der Schrei) which lies in writing (Schreiben).
At the same time, perhaps even in the same breath (and as Raj reminds us, « breath belongs to more than one body » (81) ), a gentle reminder via — for we are ever only a medium for thoughts — almost whispered through, Michel Deguy, in the way only he can: « poetry is not about the very visible nor the invisible. Poetry, instead, is about the slightly visible ». Is about quieting ourselves, slowing down, paying attention, attuning ourselves.
But how to be attentive and scream?
This, Rajinder Singh shows us: not by flattening the multiplicities which are the worlds in which we live in order to fit some idea (he is no ideologue), nor by diluting the singularity of ideas so that they can be retrofitted to any world (this is not advertising). But by touching without merging, pausing, hesitating, reflecting; meditating on what usually remains in the shadows — not because it is hidden but is right there in front of us, just unnoticed — so helping us to see ourselves in our own darkness.
I am learning to live here. In the space between folds. In the commons that cannot be enclosed. In the benign haunting of everyone who ever tied, everyone tying now, everyone who will tie. (75)
And, as importantly, doing so with a light touch, lightness, reflexivity — reminding us that while editing, reading, writing, thinking, creating, are not the same and cannot be reduced to each other, they are always also sometimes indistinguishable; in conversation, conspiring alongside, slowly slowly, sabar menanti, breathing-together, dancing, twirling-with, folding into each other, like the multiple selves, characters, persons, beings, we are — so, always playfully, with a smile like only Raj can, even and especially in our brokenness.
Not that the turban is a band-aid, far from it: that would be to hide away our fragilities, fracturedness, splinterings, cracks. And it is here that we find the radicality of Rajinder Singh’s collection: he reminds us to live with, to read, write-in-response-to, think-alongside, all of our shatterings, in other words, our irreducible singularities.
Bearing in mind to think, to read, to write, to study, to tie, to live, are practices; habits which shape, unshape, reshape our habitus. So, read this collection with care; mostly because after The Fugitive Gesture you might not be able to read, see, write — be in the world — without wanting to take flight (prendre l’envol), having realised that what we thought were our veils (nos voiles) are always also our sails (nos voiles).
Breathe … « What remains is only air, ready to carry the fugitive form onward, already beyond reach » (213).
31 May 2026
Osaka
with thanks, and much appreciation, to Raj for so very kindly inviting me to be part of his wonderful work and worlds. Get your copy of The Fugitive Gestures at Tintabudi Bookshop, Lit Books, and other good bookstores.
Raj’s solo show, Saffron Crossings, is currently on at Wei-Ling Gallery until 26 September 2026. More information can be found here.
***
Rajinder Singh (b. Ipoh, Malaysia) is an artist and researcher working from his studio in London. His paintings, installations, photography, video and performance work explore ideas around the vulnerable body and its pain, interrogating the economies of power that deny it space and shape. Often focused on the power of ritual action in the construction of the social body, his practice explores the ways the human body unfolds around various topographic and symbolic borders.