INTERNATIONAL PROVERSE PRIZE FOR UNPUBLISHED WRITING 2013

The Entry Documents for the 2013 competition for the international Proverse Prize are available now on the Proverse website, proversepublishing.com.

You may also try the following more direct link: http://proversepublishing.com/international_proverse_prize/international_proverse_prize_entry_form

The first prize is publication of the entered work and HK$10,000. (HKD7.80 approximately = US$1.00) Additional publication prizes may be awarded.

Deadline for receipt of completed Entry Documents and Entry Fees: 31 May 2013.

Deadline for receipt of Entered Works: 30 June 2013.

Entry is open to all aged 18 or above on the date they sign the Entry Documents, irrespective of residence, nationality or citizenship.

The Proverse Prize is offered for a single-author unpublished full-length work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, submitted in English.

Genres accepted: novels, novellas, short-story collections, poetry, poetry collections, non-fiction (including but not limited to autobiography, biography, memoir, diaries, essay-collections, journals, letters, travel narratives, works of popular scholarship).

Translations into English are welcome.

Work may be previously edited, acknowledging the editor.

The entry fee is HK$220.00 (two hundred and twenty HKD) or GBP32.00 (thirty-two pounds sterling).

Full details, including background, previous winners, winning and other entered works already published, as well as selected events, media notices and press releases, links to media interviews, etc. are on the Proverse website: http://www.proversepublishing.com.

General enquiries to the following email address: info@proversepublishing.com.

Kubrick Poetry • April• Life Lines

時間 Time：2013/4/28 (Sunday) 4:00pm-5:00pm

地點 Venue： 油麻地 Kubrick電影中心一樓講廳

主持 Moderators：Polly Ho & Adam Cheung

詩人 Poets：Shahilla Shariff

Life Lines is Shahilla Shariff's first collection of poetry. Drawing on her life experiences, it explores themes of love, grief, dislocation and transition. Her work addresses the vast and unruly dimensions of loss – loss of home, of time, of people, of self – and probes the raw and uncertain trajectory of mourning along with the complex interplay of memory, faith and fate. The poems span continents, generations and cultures, exposing the collisions and contradictions of East and West which underlie her own personal narrative.

Shahilla Shariff was born in Kenya and is Canadian. A fourth-generation East African, she spent her early childhood in a multi-generational Indian-Muslim household in Dar-es-Salaam. Her family later emigrated to Canada. She was educated at Harvard College,Harvard Law School and Cambridge University, where she was a Commonwealth Scholar. She has been a practising corporate lawyer for over twenty years. She has lived in Hong Kong since 1993.

Circle of Love

(Polly Ho)

To start with, Hong Kong is a metropolitan meeting point for poets.

The circle of love began when we had lunch at Mido Restaurant. There, we started dramatizing plan to have institutions like FBI and CIA, filled with occasional laughter, joined later by Madeleine. At three o’clock, we gathered again in Kubrick and formed a circle of literature. Steven Schroder and Madeleine Slavick who no longer base in Hong Kong, stopped over Hong Kong for 2-3 weeks. Polly kicked off the reading with the song Circle of Life in Lion King. After playing the song with her iPhone, she read the English version but withheld the German one as she was not yet prepared. Steve and Madeleine took turn to read their selected poems. They had prepared themselves so well with published books and manuscripts. They selected poems of the same theme and pass the ball to the next.  Madeleine seemed to like this reciprocal game. Meanwhile, Steve expressed the experience of cultural shock when he moved back to Chicago because he no longer used to living there. To Madeleine, she felt she had landed yesterday but had to leave the next day. The larger the circle, the shorter the time it is.

Through poetry, we feel much connected.

(photos by Paul Wan)

Kubrick Poetry • March • Circle of Love

 時間 Time：2013/3/23 (Saturday) 3:00pm-4:00pm

地點 Venue： 油麻地 Kubrick電影中心一樓講廳

主持 Moderators：Polly Ho & Adam Cheung

詩人 Poets：Madeleine Slavick & Steven Schroeder

At birth, we arrive on the earth somewhat blank. As we grow, we learn knowledge and how to make friends. Time passes, and we enter society and start a career. Maybe it is then that we realize that life is a circle of love, that we are moving from one loop to another, some liked, others not. We connect people from the various stages of our lives, and also disconnect. We make smaller circles, then bigger, bigger. Sometimes, bigger than the imagination.

In March, we offer a manifestation of the circle of love. Madeleine, after moving to live in New Zealand, is coming back to Hong Kong for a month. Steve Schroeder is also visiting Hong Kong from Chicago. They were both born in the United States, but it is in poetry where they met, and now meet again, to share ideas on connections, circles and love.

MADELEINE SLAVICK

Madeleine Slavick has campaigned against poverty, taught secondary school, assisted unemployed people, raised funds for an environmental agency, counseled youth, published books, assisted homebound elderly people, and exhibited her photography in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

She writes and photographs every day at her blog: http://touchingwhatilove.blogspot.com/

STEVEN SCHROEDER

Steven Schroeder is an American poet and philosopher who currently lives and writes in Chicago. His most recent poetry collections are Turn and (with David Breeden) Raging for the Exit. A bilingual collection of selected poems written in the Pearl River Delta during several years of teaching at Shenzhen University (Chinese translations by Sou Vai Keng and Song Zijiang) is coming soon from ASM Macao.

Website: http://stevenschroeder.org

Love Poem

(Adam Cheung)

It was a grayish cloudy Sunday but at Kubrick Poetry, love poems were in the air and somewhat surprisingly, people came not only to listen and to read the works of others, they were so ready to share the love poems they wrote.  We heard the poems of great names in Western literature in the likes of John Donne, Pablo Neruda, Leonard Cohen, and Irving Layton, sprinkled with philosophical excerpts of Roland Barthes.  We had an ad-hoc interpretation of what a romantic situation is.  Three boys then took turns each to share a love poem he wrote.  We talked about the classic Chinese poets and how in the ancient times, even the warring generals had a propensity for composing romance. And thanks to Polly, we had chocolate and a group activity!  With light background music, we concluded the session by producing a poem as a group.  Thanks to everyone who participated, and those who joined us for the first time. 

(Photos by Shing)