Kubrick Poetry • July • Tales from a Contested City

時間 Time：2025/7/13 (Sunday) 3:00pm-4:00pm

地點 Venue：Auditorium (1/F) in Broadway Cinematheque 

主持 Moderator: Polly Ho 

作家 Writer：Peter Cookson Smith

語言Language：English 

登記 Registration: Link

 

These 33 tales from the contested city of Hong Kong (Proverse Hong Kong) provocatively reflect its often confounding and contentious history and personality. They range from narratives of real life to the largely inventive; from the serious to the satirical. Past, present and future are imaginatively intertwined in a variety of situations which explore the city's underlying chemistry. The tales illuminate many corners of the urban experience, sometimes injected with the necessary dose of congeniality mixed with occasional melancholy which is embedded in the city's life force.

 

This is Peter’s first book of fiction. In this session, we will shed light into the tales and the original thought and history behind the tales.

 

Peter Cookson Smith is a long-time resident of Hong Kong. In 1977 he founded URBIS – one of the first specialist city-planning, urban-design and environmental consultancies in South-east Asia. He directed some of the first new town and urban regeneration studies in Hong Kong and has directed an extensive range of projects across Asia. For several years he was an Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Architecture and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is a Past-President of both the Hong Kong Institute of Planners and the Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design. He writes and lectures widely on the subject of urban design, and is the author and illustrator of eight books: The Urban Design of Impermanence (2006) about Hong Kong; The Urban Design of Concession (2011) about the growth and development of Chinese Treaty Port cities, The Urban Design of Intervention (2014) about Asian cities and more. 

Kubrick Poetry • July • Making Peace with yourself

時間 Time：2025/7/27 (Sunday) 3:00pm-4:00pm 

地點 Venue：Auditorium (1/F) in Broadway Cinematheque 

主持 Moderator: Polly Ho 

詩人 Poets：Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong, Atom Cheung 

語言Language：English 

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. 

― Marcus Aurelius 

How often do we feel unrest with ourselves? In this imperfect world, our expectations cannot always be met. Our career goals do not go the way we want. Sometimes, the day doesn’t go as we want. Even the weather is unpredictable. Some people are stuck in the past and resentful of past events. Some people constantly worry about the future. Writing poetry is a way to begin a quest for peace with yourself. In this session, two poets will be sharing their writing journey and reading their poems. If you have poems related to this theme, you are welcome to read and share. 

About the poets: 

Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong works in many mediums: poetry, music, theater, performance, video and software. Born in Wisconsin and raised in Hong Kong, she lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for two decades before returning to Hong Kong to care for her mother. She can still be spotted in California from time to time. The department of peace (Sixteen Rivers Press) is her third book of poetry, following The Quenching (Finishing Line Press) and ravel (Neopoesis Press). She has staged two plays: Liriope and There's No Stopping to My Thoughts. Renku.earth, an Elixir application she built for writing poetry collaboratively, was a runner-up for the 2024 Elixir Consultancy Prize from the consultancy firm Erlang Solutions. 

Atom Cheung is a poet based in Hong Kong. He is the voice of Atomic Heart, an intimate poetry podcast. He has recently completed two poetry manuscripts, Forty-One Frames (a collection of 67 poems written during a transformative five-year stay at the heritage building Mei Ho House) and Don’t Kick the Cat’s Stomach (a collection of 23 poems exploring diaspora, religious trauma, and caregiving). His latest works appeared in Where Else: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology and Canto Cutie. Learn more at www.atomcheung.com

Kubrick Poetry • March • Healing through Poetry

時間 Time：2025/3/23 (Sunday) 3:00pm-4:00pm 

地點 Venue：Auditorium (1/F) in Broadway Cinematheque 

主持 Moderator: Polly Ho 

詩人 Poets：Sadaff Habib, Florence Ng, Luisa Ternau 

語言Language：English 

The hustle world sometimes falls into silence. 

I feel the coldness amid the busy days and nights. 

A fleeting moment, gone in a blink. 

Not have yet the time to truly live. 

Meeting you, perhaps is the destiny of God. 

 Translation of lyrics from the song, The Water in the Dessert

 From the album The Dreamer by Khalil Fong 

How do we deal with our wounds when facing illness, passing of our loved one, battles of everyday living? The passing of singer and composer Khalil Fong and actress Barbie Hsu must have rung a bell in each of our heart. Why is life so fragile? 

 Poetry writing is a way for self-healing. It enables us to let go of our worries and reveal our deepest sorrow. The recurring theme in the poem unveil our unsounded worries and fear. In this special session, we invited three poets to read and share their journey of healing in writing poetry. 

About the poets: 

Sadaff Habib, born in Kenya and of Indian roots, Sadaff is a speaker, spoken word artist, and the author of My Womb, a collection of 108 poems on transformation, healing, and self-discovery. Through poetry and story telling, she inspires audience to embrace their wounds, find their voice, and honour every aspect of their personal journey. 

Florence Ng was born and lives in Hong Kong. She has co-founded Kubrick Poetry with Polly Ho and Waiyim Wong. Her first bilingual collection Wild Boar in Victoria Harbour was published by Kubrick in 2019. In 2021, she created the online poetry journal, Pause for Paws to celebrate people’s love for their poets and animals. 

Luisa Ternau studied literature at the University of Trieste in Italy and then gained an MA in modern English literature at King’s College London. She has enjoyed living and working in Europe, America and Asia. Luisa won a third prize in the Proverse Poetry Prize for Single Poems in 2016.