By Yeow Kai Chai

If you wonder about the title of Kimberley Chia Qin's debut poetry collection Hot Girls have Stomach Issues (Afterimage, 2026), you are obviously not aware of the TikTok trend.

The provenance of the clause comes from the phenomenon of mostly women coming clean on diarrhoea, constipation, farting and other digestive disorders associated with the irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Chia stands out from a cohort of young, exciting Singaporean poets by bursting "onto the scene with unsavoury splendour," to borrow a zinger from her title poem. Her best works thrive at the intersections of candour, invention, and destigmatisation, exploring matrilineality, self-image and family bonds.

A self-described poet and performance artist "who seeks to nourish and archive," she also taps into modern dance for self-expression. Her poetry has been published in ANMLY and Sine Theta Magazine, among others, and is informed by the body, the trees, mutual care, and girlhood. She debuted her multidisciplinary spoken-word set at triple bill Out & Up (2025). She is writing more poetry and potentially expanding to other genres.

  1. What are you reading right now?
I've just finished Audition by Katie Kitamura after hearing a ton about it. I thought it was clever and cheeky, albeit a little indulgent. I think I'm going to take a break from stories about artists for a bit, though. Being immersed in the self-referential for too long at a time tends to feel a little insular or unhealthy for me.

On the other hand, I've just started a very different and spectacularly fun book, Queer as Folklore: The Hidden Queer History of Myths and Monsters, which I picked up at one of my favourite bookstores ever (Gay's the Word in London) last year. Happy Pride (or belated Pride, once this is out)!

2. If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play or poem, what would you be and why?
Probably the Woman crying uncontrollably in the next stall from the poem by Kim Addonizio—I've definitely forgotten many a pad in my life and am made buoyant by the women I am fortunate to be/ have been surrounded by.

…Or perhaps the wallpaper in 'The Yellow Wallpaper.'

3. What is the greatest misconception about you?
I didn't actually start out doing spoken word—I've been writing for the page almost thrice as long as I've been performing, and have only ever deliberately written something for performance once. But having written and written like it was all I could physically do while living in Paris, and grown slightly weary of being judged by Parisians for my far less than stellar French, I somehow found myself reading a poem on mould aloud for the first time in the basement of a bar to a roomful of English-speaking strangers.

It was a swift and foregone conclusion from there: I fell in love with the distinct openness and warmth only a space like an open mic (and bar) could create. I love listening, the sheer vulnerability of it all, and, of course, how unabashed I can be about showing my affection for a banger of a line. I like to be reminded that writing is so much bigger than a single person: it's a room, it's a hug and it's the human experience. And the bounds of craft and exploration become so expansive! I know there's been a bunch of discourse on page vs stage poets but I like having my foot in both worlds. To me, the two aren't at all distinct or competing realms. They nourish each other.

4. Name one living writer and one dead writer you most identify with, and tell us why.
Less identification and more affinity or aspiration: Sharon Olds, who's 83 and ever luminous, and whose mother, in her writing, has simultaneously been her Achilles Heel and north star. I especially appreciate how she balances candour with grace.

As for a dead writer I'm inspired by, perhaps Benjamin Zephaniah, whom we sadly lost a few years ago. For his dark humour, affinity for the absurd, and refusal to yield to convention and authority.

Like both, I hope to always have a disregard for pretence, and to remain steadfast to what is good and sincere.

5. Do you believe in writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
There undoubtedly are drought-like days and even months. But I believe in the necessity of the writer's block. For me, restraint and knowing when it is too futile to force it are integral and significant parts of craft. I'd like to think that living, feeling and time passing inform poetry.

When, inevitably, there are deadlines involved, I find it helpful to enjoy other art, converse with a beloved, or go for a long cycle/walk. Again, I do some living and the writing follows, because it has to.

6.  What qualities do you most admire in a writer?
Openness, precision, empathy, whimsy.

And the grace to share, nurture and care collectively.

7. What is one trait you most deplore in writing or writers?
Not the hugest fan of posturing, elitism, or ego.

I also hope to never veer into carelessness or mean-spiritedness; I'd rather stop writing than write to lacerate.

8. Can you recite your favourite line from a literary work or a piece of advice from a writer?
"I have got your mouth wrong, but still it smiles" from Miles Away, by Carol Ann Duffy.  This poem makes me cry. It is the greatest salve of my life to know that, whether in distance or in grief, sentiment will always transcend our fallible faculties and memory.

9. Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but I…
…was training to be a professional ballerina at some point in my life. Between that and wanting to be a full-time writer, my mother was horrified that I was torn between two paths of the starving artist life.

10. At the movies, if you have to pick a comedy, a tragedy or an action thriller to watch, which would you go for?
A black comedy. Ideally one where 'Dancing On My Own' by Robyn or Joni Mitchell plays at some point and I'm laughing and bawling all at once. I won't be able to tell if it's a knot of joy or grief that's growing in my chest, then I'll pretend my contact lenses are wonky until I'm sobbing into my nachos.

11. What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one?
I've been loving "rituals."

Not a word per se, but "par for the course" has been grating on me. Corporate speak and golf… two things I'm not a massive fan of.

12. Compose a rhyming couplet that includes the following words: teh halia, two-step, lunar eclipse.

Two-step to immortality: rinse compulsions in teh-halia; offer earthly inhibition to the lunar eclipse in Oceania.

Eek!

13. What object is indispensable to you when you write?
My laptop. And a water bottle. I get very dehydrated.

14. What is the best time of the day for writing?
When commuting, or 4pm.

15. If you have a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
Kaveh Akbar, Snoopy*, bell hooks. We could speak about heaps: death and the after, genocide, the body, art and craft, grief, and community.

I'm cheating here, but I'd also ask my popo (maternal grandmother) along. She'd have the most to contribute.  

*Just know that it took a generational, world-building talent to tell the stories he did atop that red doghouse.

16. Womanhood is at the core of Hot Girls Have Stomach Issues. As a practitioner of modern dance, you are deeply in touch with bodily functions and physical movements. What have you discovered about the female body? And what are the alignments between these three artforms – poetry, spoken-word and dance – have you gleaned?
The female body is as monstrous as it is magical. It has no god, pays no heed and has a mind of its own. And it often evades logic. But the body also remembers a lot more than you'd think. I'm a firm believer in muscle memory, and this is something that movement has taught me, too—that the folds of our body carry things, which in turn shape the way we literally move through the world. I have often felt betrayed by my body, yet I have also frequently felt held and cared for by its tenacity and recollection. All in all it's best to revere but not submit. Moving between the different art forms and weaving them together has been very sustaining for me. Each is a way to make legible things that often feel guttural but unknowable. And across all three forms, the best work comes from the chest.

17. What would you write on your own tombstone?
I love you yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

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