blood/work

Poems by bani haykal, David Wong Hsien Ming & Izyanti Asa’ari
With a critical introduction by Diana Rahim

Our ALLTHETIME folios present three poets across the generations in conversation with one another. This time, the words of bani haykal, David Wong Hsieng Ming and Izyanti Asa’ari braid together the grievances–quiet and loud–that colour the days of our increasingly estranged lives.

blood/work brings together three poets whose voices intertwine across themes of endurance, immanent pain, and the body’s remembering. Moving between confession and collaboration, the collection traces how blood—as kinship, sacrifice, and persistence—binds us to histories both chosen and imposed. 

Each poet writes into the work of living: the physical, the emotional, and the collective labour of becoming. In dialogue, their poems blur boundaries of voice and authorship, building a shared anatomy of care and survival. blood/work asks what is passed through us, what we carry, and how writing might transform what wounds into what endures.