We had the book launch of Making Space, published by Cart Noodles Press, at Kubrick Bookstore on 23rd April, 2023. The event was packed with audience. Nicolette Wong, who is the curator and editor of the book, started the event. We had a stellar line of contributors who read from the book. They were Paola Caronni, Jennifer Eagleton, Lee Chi Leung(李智良), Sonia FL Leung, Jocelyn Li and Marco Yan. After the reading, we shared our view on the perception of space and how possible or impossible to create space for writing in Hong Kong. The audience threw questions on our contributors. One of the questions is from Chris Song, who is the chief editor of Voice and Verse Magazine. He asked if the poem Lo Ting Visits Oscar by the Sea had something to do with Lo Ting came to visit its creator Oscar. Jocelyn was stunned to learn Lo Ting’s creator is also named Oscar. Polly Ho asked the book designer, Zac Choy, about his design concept on the book. He expressed those were the sentence strip that writers write on paper. He chooses the skin colour for the book cover to have a close touch on human. Some people interpreted the book cover as having censorship or it can be read as an erasure poetry. Many of us applauded at this beautiful book design and its meaning depends on the readers’ interpretation.
The book, Making Space, come into life as a book project first and foremost initiated by Nicolette Wong from the English Department in CUHK. They would like to expand readership to the local community and seek collaboration with Kubrick Poetry Society which has 17 years promoting poetry reading and writing. KPS can be a window to reach the local readers. Our gratitude to Nicolette Wong for inviting us and who did all the editing work. We feel lucky to have Zac Choy as our book designer and special thanks for Eddie Tay for supporting the book project.
(Photo credit to Felix Wong, Paul Wan and Florence Ng)