Summer Literary Recitals: Penning Our Lives

Date: 30/6/2018 (Saturday)

Time: 2:30-4:00pm

Venue: Hong Kong Central Library Exhibition Gallery, G/F

Guests: Agnes S. L. Lam , Collier Nogues, Florence Ng Chi Yan

Moderator: Polly Ho Sai Fung

Is there anyone who inspires you? Is there anyone who changes your life? Betty Jamie Chung wrote a book about her mother named “Recipes From My Mother”. Her mother was a most outstanding person, educated, elegant, beautiful and strongly committed to moral rectitude. Her mother influenced her perceptions on how she looks, how she deals with people and situations. Is there someone like Betty’s mother in your life? We write what we see, hear and observe but sometimes, the best story may come from one’s own life. We find the best story in people around us.

Agnes S. L. Lam

Agnes S. L. Lam retired as Professor from the University of Hong Kong in 2012. Representative works include: Woman to woman and other poems (1997), Water wood pure splendour (2001), A pond in the sky (2013) and Poppies by the motorway (2017). Some of her poems have been translated into German, Italian and other languages. An Honorary Fellow in Writing by the University of Iowa (2008), she was awarded the Nosside International Poetry Prize (Special Mention, 2008). In 2009, she received a Commendation from the Home Affairs Bureau, HKSAR, in recognition of her outstanding achievements in international arts and cultural activities. In 2017, she participated in the International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong. She is also noted for her research in Asian writing in English; her book, Becoming poets: The Asian English experience (2014, Peter Lang), is considered ‘a cogent assessment of the Asian English experience’ (2015, Asiatic).

Collier Nogues

Collier Nogues’ poetry collections are The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground (Drunken Boat, 2015) and On the Other Side, Blue (Four Way, 2011). Her work has been supported by fellowships and grants from the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, and Lingnan University. She teaches creative writing in the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s MA Program in Literary Studies, and is a PhD Fellow at the University of Hong Kong, where she studies contemporary poetry’s response to US militarization. She also co-edits poetry for Juked and Tongueand curates Ragged Claws, Hong Kong’s English-medium poetry craft talk series.

Florence Ng Chi Yan

Florence Ng was born in Hong Kong. She studied comparative literature at the University of Hong Kong and co-founded Kubrick Poetry with friends. With their help, she self-published a pamphlet titled “Book of Shoes”. Her work was awarded Youth Literary Awards (the 20^th and 25^th) and Nosside 2010 (Mentions), longlisted for Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition 2015 and selected for Mingled Voices 2 published by Proverse Hong Kong. She is working on her first English poetry pamphlet.

Polly Ho Sai Fung (Moderator)

Polly Ho Sai Fung graduated from the University of Hong Kong majoring in Psychology. She has been devoting her time organizing poetry readings at Kubrick Poetry since 2007. She feels privileged to have encountered so many talented local and international poets. She has twice successfully secured the Year Grant from the Arts Development Council for Kubrick Poetry Society (2010-2011, 2013-2014).  She teaches English at a primary school. 

Official Website: https://www.hkpl.gov.hk/en/extension-activities/hklf/hklf12/event-cat/123572

Kubrick Poetry • May • Mingled Voices

時間Time：2018/5/27 4:00pm-5:00pm

地點Venue：油麻地Kubrick電影中心一樓講廳

主持Moderator: Polly Ho

詩人Poets：Gillian Bickley, Verner Bickley, Jose Manuel Sevilla, Florence Ng, Luisa Ternau, Teresa N. F. Chu

語言Language：English

This is the third year that an international poetry prize is administered from Hong Kong. Come to hear some of the Hong Kong poets who won a place in the Proverse Poetry Prize 2017 Anthology, "Mingled Voices 2", recently launched by Proverse Hong Kong at an event where poets from Chile and Estonia mingled with Hong Kong-based poets from Australia, Hong Kong, Italy, the UK and South Africa. We have invited Catalan poet and playwright Jose Manuel Sevilla to join Teresa N. F. Chu, Florence Ng and one other to read their poems first and all others who feature in the Anthology are also warmly invited to attend and read within the time available.

What is the purpose of launching the anthology? What keep Dr. Verner and Dr. Gillian Bickley launching the Poetry Prize each year? What attract the participants to submit their work to them when there are many other publishers in Hong Kong available? Come and hear the published poets.

Kubrick Poetry • April • Travelling with a poetic mind

時間 Time：2018/4/20 (Friday) 7:30pm-8:30pm

地點 Venue：油麻地 Kubrick電影中心一樓講廳

主持 Moderator: Polly Ho

詩人 Poets：Maria Elena Blanco (Havana, Cuba), Mathura (Estonia)

語言Language：English

How do you document a trip? By taking photos or writing a journal or a poem? Travelling has not just enriched our experiences, it also cultivates the poetic mind by being alone, away from home, crossing the border and rethink ourselves in a new city. We get to know ourselves more by travelling alone, getting to know our friends even more by going on a trip together. Sometime you are more sensitive to the cultural differences that you don’t normally aware of. In this month, we have invited two award-winning poets from two very different countries and background. They come together to receive the Proverse Poetry Prize this April. We take this opportunity to discuss their writing journey and translation experience.

MARÍA ELENA BLANCO (Havana, Cuba) is a poet, essayist and translator who writes predominantly in her native Spanish. Having spent a good part of her formative years in New York, she translates her own poetry into English and has also developed her own English poetic voice in a style quite distinguishable from her Spanish one. She has taught French literature and language and worked for the United Nations as translator/reviser, presently on a freelance basis. She divides her time between her home in Vienna (Austria), Chile, and the Andalusian countryside.

MARGUS LATTIK aka Mathura is an Estonian poet and writer, author of eight collections of poetry and a short novel. He has won the Gustav Suits Poetry Award (2014) and the Virumaa Literary Award for the best historical novel of the year (2017).

Kubrick Poetry •「從旁觀到介入」──葉英傑新書分享會

日期：2018年3月25日下午4時至5時

地點 ：油麻地 Kubrick電影中心一樓講廳

主持：Florence Ng

嘉賓：葉英傑 、 周漢輝

「又或把注意力放回身下的泥土

   學習如何跟它妥協，如何

   讓自己繼續優雅地活著。」──《旁觀生活》〈阿里山神木〉

在這個手機即拍即享的年代，詩人葉英傑仍然堅持用文字慢慢調整和構築他的視角，不爭鳴，不宣示，始終維持冷靜的敏銳。來到他的第五本詩集《旁觀生活》，英傑為我們凝住了異地、家族、浮生的生命光影，伴我們體味細水長流的甘醇。

詩人自述：

葉英傑仍然記得第一首詩是什麼時候寫的，是在１９８９年２月５日，地點在廣州表姐的家中，那天是農曆年廿九，說的是不想年假過得這麼快，差不多要回港捨不得廣州的親友。之後在１９９２年開始拿青年文學獎（１９、２０、２１、２２、２４屆）。那時候他的詩使用很多意象，有人說很超現實。之後被王良和抓去跟一班詩友一起談詩；這詩社是〈我們詩社〉。後來還有〈大學詩會〉（然而參與的時候他不再是大學生了）。後來憑〈散步〉拿２０００年中文文學獎。此後他就揮不開〈散步〉了。〈散步〉是他第一首很自覺的，敘事成份很重的詩。經過多年努力，終於完成了《尋找最舒適的坐姿》及最新的《旁觀生活》這兩本詩集。這兩本詩集其實是二為一體的，都是有關家，有關各親友，有關生活。是的，葉英傑的詩，似乎都離不開一直圍繞的「人」，和生活。