Poetry Speaks: Cheng Tim Tim’s Selections—Reading Felix Chow, Reading Hong Kong

Connecting the Dots I never knew English poetry could look like this, something so close to daily life. I invite you to read the poem below aloud, which contains the sounds from many Hongkongers’ teenage years: So MKby Felix Chow They sat on mallside bannisterssmoking IQOS. Screaming spring.Contact-covered eyes behinda greasy, fringy frame. Bright-haired street…

Pride of Place: Cheng Tim Tim

Pride of Place: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department reflect on a place in Hong Kong. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Pet Sounds” series.] [Revisit the “Headspace” series.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] Tap In, Tap Out It was the blue wall on the Black Cloth…

Pet Sounds: Cheng Tim Tim

Pet Sounds: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department reflect on a piece of music or song. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Headspace” series.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] (Y)ears – after Joe Brainard’s “I Remember” I remember the incessant minimal waltz of exit A’s escalator in…

“Three Observations” by Cheng Tim Tim

Curtain breathes. It makes a silent mosquito on my skin. I can’t always tell the hour from the filtered sunbeam. I grasp a corner of the curtain and pull. A strip of morning sky is to be scrambled by more buildings and cranes. I must get up. My hand feels its way to the windowpane….

Headspace: Cheng Tim Tim

Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.]  [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] The book-bricked silence; the crowded commons of coffee-stained breaths; fingers tap-dancing on greasy keyboards; the birth of…

“Another Matthew Bear” by Cheng Tim Tim

“We would love to provide bears to all of you who are mourning the loss of someone special. However, we are a very small group and are doing this just for fallen service member’s families.” —The Matthew Freeman Project Covered in a piece of the army uniform you’d worn, now unstained as in the morning…