Kubrick Poetry: 2014/4/1

2014/4/26

Writing Prize open for Entry: The international Proverse Prize for unpublished writing 2014

THE PROVERSE PRIZE 2014 IS NOW OPEN FOR ENTRY!

DEADLINE for completed entry forms / fees to be received in Hong Kong / UK: 31 May 2014.

DEADLINE for entered work to be received in Europe: 30 June 2014.

THE INTERNATIONAL PROVERSE PRIZE FOR UNPUBLISHED FICTION, NON-FICTION OR POETRY SUBMITTED IN ENGLISH 2014

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

Translations into English are welcome. Work may be previously edited, acknowledging the editor.

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

The Entry documents are available from the Proverse website: proversepublishing.com.

The entry fee is HK$220.00 (two hundred and twenty Hong Kong Dollars) 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>.

Do consider whether this is an opportunity you yourself would like to pursue.

Additionally, do post this message and/or pass it on to those who you think may be interested in competing for the Proverse Prize 2014.

Proverse Prize Administrators

proverseprize@proversepublishing.com

2014/4/22

Goldfish

Polly Ho

Jennifer Wong read with us last month in Kubrick. She shared about her experience transforming from working as a government officer to pursuing her passion in poetry. Now she is working on a PhD in poetry and poetics at Oxford Brookes University, with a focus on the idea of homeland and ethnic identity in contemporary Chinese American poetry.

Jennifer Wong is humble and very approachable. She is genuine and generous towards people around her. My first acquaintance with Jennifer is through her first poetry book, Summer Cicadas. I bought it in a second-hand book sale at a book fair. I was caught by the cover of the book, a thoughtful and quiet stare of a young girl in short hair. Poetry connects people of the same interests. Now I had the privilege to invite her to read. She is exactly the person that I imagined, or even better, well-educated, kind-hearted, thoughtful and comfortable.

She read three poems from Summer Cicadas, three poems from Goldfish, her latest poetry book. Her early poems speaks of her emotion and feelings in “Morning at Queen’s Lane Coffee-house” and her daily observations in “Ferrying Across”. She describes the moment of ferry docking from the perspective of a tourist in the delight of a new experience. In Goldfish, her style changed. There are clearer images and shorter stanza. She re-writes some classical Chinese poems and lyrics in the Tang and Song Dynasty. She chose a few that depicts Hong Kong current affairs, ‘What Happened to Miss Chang’ and ‘Shanghai Street’. The last one, ‘My Last Monologues’, explored her deeper emotions and touched on her personal growth. The participants then discussed about whether they relate more to poems on personal topics or poems that narrate our objective surroundings. Ha Jin, a contemporary American-Chinese poet and novelist, once said in a book fair that what touches the innermost of a reader is a personal recount of an experience, because it concerns not just one specific person, it concerns everyone.

An excerpt from The Last Monologues

This is the black forest of my heart,

this is my circumference.

See snow patches and brown leaves on the grass,

snow and orphaned leaves with nowhere to go.

May I ask what still clutches the soil?

And what’s that quivering in your bag?

The window is always left open.

Window and the winter chill.

Do you have a black forest? Does this personal circumference also your protected boundary?

詩中有畫

Polly Ho

每一首詩都有意象，一首觸動人心，令人引發聯想的詩往往有一個鮮明的意象，可以在讀者心中留下一幅圖畫。

為著了解詩的特性，我們舉辦了一次「詩畫」活動，參加者帶一首他們喜歡的詩（自己的作品或其他詩人的作品），來到活動地點賽馬會藝術中心的工作室。甫開始，參加者介紹他們帶來的詩，講解喜歡這首詩的原因，繼而透過自己對這首詩的理解，引發想像，把心中的意象用畫筆和顏色描繪下來。起初大家都有點手足無措，不知如何能把文字轉化成圖畫。然而過程並非想像中困難，大家一邊傾談，一邊繪畫，有的漸漸畫出興緻來，全情投入；有的一邊畫一邊思考圖中人物的社會象徵意義，有的思量顏色的配搭。到了最後，各自各精采，大家都成為一位詩畫家。

畫完後，我們討論這些畫怎樣代表詩，畫中的意象有什麼特殊意義，與詩又有何關連等等，興味盎然。