You are working dutifully in Singapore on a Friday afternoon, the week waning with your energy.

The day is nearly over, and you decide that it’s time for a short break. Downstairs from your office, the aroma of the local kopitiam fills you up, rejuvenates you. You step inside and order your favourite beverage. And when you step back out, just five or ten minutes later, the world sings a little softer at the edges. The sun is less harsh on your back.

Founded in August 2023 by three Singaporean poets, Kopi Break is an online literary magazine featuring new voices in Singaporean poetry. We believe in the incredible poetic talent on this small island, and we’re dedicated to showcasing it to local and international audiences. Join us as we take a sip of one poem every single week: poems to keep you up and get you out of bed. Poems that live loudly and so breathe life into those who read them. Poems that love language like umbrella against monsoon, and poems that stand in the downpour, drenched in gorgeous abandon. Poems that mean something as quick as a kick of caffeine or as long as Friday afternoon shadow. Poems to keep you reading until you reach the dregs.

Welcome, dear reader, to your Friday kopi break.

  • KENDRICK LOO (HE/HIM)

    is a Singaporean poet and reviewer. His poem, “Laundry,” was the winner of the Desmond O'Grady International Poetry Competition 2022. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, his poems can be found in fourteen poems, ROPES Literary Journal, Moist Poetry Journal, and Sundog Lit, amongst others. He served as the Reviews Editor for SUSPECT from 2019-2021. www.msha.ke/kendrickloo

  • MAX PASAKORN (HE/SHE/THEY)

    is a queer, Thai-born, Singapore-based essayist and poet. Max’s writing, predominantly about their identities, has won the 2022 Chestnut Review Stubborn Writers’ Contest, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and is a finalist for the SFPA Rhysling Award. Their work can be found in Honey Literary, Eunoia Review, SUSPECT, Chestnut Review, Strange Horizons, Freeze Ray Poetry and more. Max’s debut nonfiction chapbook, A Study in Our Selves, won the OutWrite 2022 Chapbook Competition and was published by Neon Hemlock Press in 2023. www.maxpasakorn.works

  • TOPAZ WINTERS (SHE/THEY)

    is the author of So, Stranger (Button Poetry 2022) & Portrait of My Body as a Crime I’m Still Committing (Button Poetry 2019 & 2024). She serves as editor-in-chief of Half Mystic Press, an independent, international, & interdisciplinary publishing project. She lives between New York & Singapore with a white dog named Hachii & a black cat named Volta. www.topazwinters.com