WE MAKE SPACES DIVINE
Poetry Collection, Math Paper Press, 2021
These poems walk through cities in bodies that don’t belong. They speak through moments in migration, music, film and pop culture. These are poems as acts of resistance, renewal and reclamation. Poems that make shrines of grimy corners. They are dancing till the sun comes up and laughing in the face of anyone who says they cannot take up space.
“The collection is shot through with a fierce and defiant joy.”
— Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
“A collection that will keep you dancing through its virtuosity of forms. Stunning!
— Daljit Nagra
We Make Spaces Divine ft Dey
Multidisciplinary Performance |2025
Co-presented by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Kalaa Utsavam and The Public Space
What does it mean to belong to a city? What sounds, stories and cultural memories make a place feel like home?
We Make Spaces Divine ft. Dey brings together poetry, live music, DJ culture and visual design in an exuberant exploration of growing up Indian in Singapore. Drawing on Bollywood soundtracks, Tamil cinema, hip-hop and the everyday rituals of Singaporean Indian life, the production transforms personal and collective memories into a celebration of identity, belonging and cultural possibility.
Part spoken-word performance, part concert, part club night, the work invites audiences to witness and inhabit these stories together.
“Ferocious, sensual, and primal.”
— Bakchormeeboy
CREATIVE TEAM
Created and performed by Pooja Nansi, Shivram Gopinath, Isuru Wijesoma and RAAJ
You Are Here
Theatre Performance | 2015–2021
Nominated for Best Original Script, The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards 2022
You Are Here is a one-woman show about migration, belonging and the complicated business of calling somewhere home.
Drawing on her family’s journeys from India to Singapore, from her grandparents’ border-crossing love story to her parents’ migration, Pooja Nansi weaves poetry, storytelling and humour into an exploration of inherited histories, cultural identity and the peculiar demands of fitting into Singapore’s racial categories. At its heart, the work asks what it means to belong to a place that doesn’t always know where to put you.
Originally commissioned by Checkpoint Theatre in 2015, You Are Here was subsequently presented at Esplanade’s The Studios, Queensland Poetry Festival and Kalaa Utsavam in 2016. In 2021, the work was reimagined and newly commissioned by Wild Rice for an 18-performance run, directed by Edith Podesta.
CREATIVE TEAM
Written and performed by Pooja Nansi
Directed by Joel Tan (2015–2016)
Directed by Edith Podesta (2021)
Thick Beats For Good Girls
Theatre Performance | 2018
Commissioned and presented by Checkpoint Theatre
What does it mean to be a good girl? And who gets to decide?
Thick Beats for Good Girls brings together Singaporean poet Pooja Nansi and Australian playwright Jessica Bellamy in a provocative, funny and fiercely personal exploration of race, religion, gender and hip-hop.
Drawing on their experiences of growing up as women from minority communities, the production navigates the contradictions of loving a musical culture that can be both liberating and deeply misogynistic. Part coming-of-age story, part love letter to hip-hop, it asks who gets to define respectability, whose voices are heard, and what it takes to claim space on your own terms.
CREATIVE TEAM
Written and performed by Pooja Nansi and Jessica Bellamy
Directed and dramaturged by Huzir Sulaiman
Love is an Empty Barstool
Poetry Collection, Math Paper Press, 2013
The poems in this collection are best read with a glass of single malt but they work equally well in a quiet place at twilight. Test on a small area first – especially if you are in possession of a broken (or breaking) heart and see your bartender immediately if side effects persist.
“Pooja Nansi’s intense collection of love poems has slowly become something of a must-read
among hyper-literate young people across the island.”
— Helmi Yusof, The Business Times