[07/01/26] Koh, Jee Leong: To the Tune

Bench Press, paperback

Publication Date: July 1, 2026

Publisher Marketing: 

“Profound compassion and unerring ear.” —Jenny Xie, author, The Rupture Tense

In To the Tune, Jee Leong Koh asks Chinese poet Du Fu how poetry can take to the barricades, discovering bracing answers from ordinary citizens, media workers, political organizers, and protest songwriters from Singapore. Koh’s new book juxtaposes a series of searching epistolary poems and a collection of poem-songs that forcibly and tentatively lurch into existence, take on misguided titles, and beg for music to set them chanting and marching.