The 11th Hong Kong Literature Festival
Date: 7/72016 (Thursday)
Time: 7:00-8:30pm
Venue: Activity Room1, Hong Kong Central Library
Guests: Celia
Claase, Elbert
Siu Ping Lee and James Shea
Moderator: Polly Ho Sai Fung
Living in a city of cement, poets bring their readers
back to nature through landscape in the poem. How important is the nature elements in poetry writing? Is nature a genuine
source of inspiration or an imaginative component that purify poetry? How often
do you venture into nature and how often do you venture into facebook? Why do
poets still write
rains, streams, hills, flowers and
birds to express emotions, conflicts and love? Where does nature take us when
we face everyday challenges in career, relationship and personal pursuit? Does
the change in weather ultimately change our writing? How does global warming
affect our way of living and our way of writing as well as other art forms?
Celia Claase
Celia teaches English, drama and creative writing by
day and writes in her free time. Her first collection of fantasophical essays
and poetry won the 2014 international Provese prize and an additional Proverse
publishing prize. Her poetry and writing
also features in the WiPs journals, Imprint
13, 14 and15; Writers Abroad International journal “Foreign and Far away;” e-journal LitNet and will feature in the forthcoming Rhodes University SA’s
journal, New Coin. Her stage script: “The Three Thieves” received an outstanding award from The Hong Kong
School and Drama Festival and she won a prize from LitNet e-journal for a piece
of flash fiction. Celia is a member
of Poetry OutLoud and Peel Street Poets. She acted as a judge for Performing
Artistes Association (Asia) Arts & Speech Competition (2015); co-ordinated
the WiPS’s annual Short Story Competition for Senior School Students in 2014
and is a preliminary Judge for the 2016 HK Baptist University’s Budding Poets
Award program.
Elbert Siu Ping Lee
Elbert Siu Ping Lee
teaches psychology at Upper Iowa University, Hong Kong Campus. He is also the
editor of City Upbeats, a student affairs magazine published by the City
University Of Hong Kong. Elbert has contributed poems and featured articles to
a number of local magazines such as Muse
Magazine, Asian Cha, and Poetry Macao.
Some of his recently
published poems have appeared in Hong
Kong Poems, an English-German anthology, published by Stauffenburgs, 2007,
and in Fifty/Fifty: A new anthology of
Hong Kong writing, published by Haven Books, 2008. His most recent work is
the poetry collection Rain on the Pacific
Coast, published by Proverse Hong Kong, 2013.
James Shea
James Shea is the author of two poetry collections, The Lost Novel (Fence Books, 2014) and Star
in the Eye (Fence Books, 2008). Star
in the Eye was selected for the Fence Modern Poets Series and included
in the Poetry Society of America’s New American Poets series. A former
Fulbright Scholar in Hong Kong, he has taught at Nebraska Wesleyan University,
the University of Chicago’s Committee on Creative Writing, Columbia College
Chicago’s MFA Program in Poetry, DePaul University, and as a poet-in-residence
in the Chicago public schools. He is currently an assistant professor in the
Department of Humanities and Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University.
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 link:
https://www.hkpl.gov.hk/tc/extension-activities/hklf/hklf11/event-detail/93151
