The liwuli is an Indo/Malay form of poetry with quite proscriptive rules. I learnt about it from Joshua Ip, a very talented Singaporean poet who visited Adelaide in 2015. I’ve only ever published one liwuli – Liwuli of Leadership (which I wrote during Joshua’s workshop) – on this poetry blog and as part of the final presentation in my Lost and Found Artist Residency at Adelaide City Library.

So I was pretty amused to see it as the first example of the form on the website:

South East Asian Poetic Forms

Mike Hopkins gets a guernsey too!

Here’s my poem:

liwuli of leadership

 

Start with idealism. Ends always trump means. Gain power. Hold it tight. Become cynical. Break promises. Retain power.

 

You’ll have many friends, until the end.

You’ll leave.

Or they will.

 

Aren’t all leaders destined

to be replaced?

Thanks for making me an instant expert Josh!