The image opening this book about “intersections” is an eponymous poem in the shape of a frangipani flower. “Intersections” is one editor’s humble (and humbling) attempt at navigating an online text manipulation generator, which required manually trackpad-drawing the desired mosaic. The poetic montage textually and visually showcases the cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary praxes of poetry, pedagogy,…
Category: Jason S Polley
Announcement: Tammy Lai-Ming Ho and Jason S Polley are Poetry Mentors for After_
Associate Professors Dr Tammy Lai-Ming Ho and Dr Jason S Polley are amongst two of the mentors for the After_ programme, which is organised by Zolima Citymag and financially support from Design Trust. The programme asked selected young Hongkongers to ‘reflect on the pandemic’s impact in prose, poetry, video and photography’: It was an opportunity to…
“Image, Text, Image & Text, and Other Textual Innovations: A List of Books” by Jason S Polley
Editor’s note: On Thursday 26 November 2020, Dr Jason S Polley took part in the discussion “Ekphrasis City Poetics: Art and Text“, which was part of this year’s One City One Book Hong Kong programme, focusing on Xi Xi and her novel My City specifically. The event was a collaboration with the Hong Kong-based literary…
Poetry Speaks: Jason S Polley’s Selection
On Shakespeare, Proust, Loss, and Longingby Jason S Polley The equally sonorous and reflective opening two lines of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 30”, “When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, / I summon up remembrance of things past,” cannot help but conjure Marcel Proust’s inimitable seven-volume novel À la recherche du temps perdu, a title that…
Announcement: Whip-Smart and Specialized: Hong Kong PhD Fellowship @ HKBU ENG
In a bid to recruit doctoral applicants from around the globe, this four-part series showcases Literature and Language colleagues from Hong Kong Baptist University’s Department of English. Each salon pairs two professors, who, once they’ve individually highlighted their established and ongoing research ideas/projects, open the floor to general and specific questions about the Hong Kong…
Our Stories @ ENG: Jason S Polley
Our Stories @ ENG: A series in which teaching staff and students share their memories of the ENG Department to coincide with the 60th Anniversary of the department. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Pride of Place” series.] [Revisit the “Pet Sounds” series.] [Revisit the “Headspace” series.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] Curmudgeon…
Pride of Place: Jason S Polley
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.] I’d be squinting, barely able to see, to see anything beyond just too…
“Beyond Tsismosa and Before Artista” by Jason S Polley
WIMLER Foundation Hong Kong Ltd. was officially registered in 2011 as a non-profit and charitable organisation and its primary objective is to support the capacity building and empowerment of migrant communities regardless of nationalities and to promote cultural diversity in Hong Kong based on mutual respect, solidarity, and shared empowerment among peoples. . This Cha…
“Eloquence, Anger, Sincerity: Henry Wei Leung’s Goddess of Democracy” by Jason S Polley
Henry Wei Leung, Goddess of Democracy: An Occupy Lyric, Omnidawn, 2017, 128 pgs. {☂} A banner: 我 要 真 普 選 Here’s a long opening-sentence: when I saw the Chinese characters quoted above in Henry Wei Leung’s piece “An Umbrella: Revolution,” characters I recall from the streets of Tsim Sha Tsui, Mong Kok and Admiralty, characters…
Announcement: Members of the ENG Department Join the Cha Writing Workshop Series
Three teaching staff from the Department of English, Tammy Lai-Ming Ho (Assistant Professor), Jason S Polley (Associate Professor) and Lian-Hee Wee (Professor) have joined the Cha Writing Workshop Series as mentors to run workshops for local schoolchildren and economically disadvantaged groups in the city. The series is supported by the English Departments at The Chinese University of…
“Impromptu Performances and Wild Exhibitions: Christopher DeWolf’s Borrowed Spaces” by Jason S Polley
Christopher DeWolf, Borrowed Spaces: Life Between the Cracks of Modern Hong Kong, Penguin, 2017, 100 pags. Pictured above: Jason S Polley. My best literary friend in undergrad, then in his early 20s, and, à la Beat and Bukowski imaginary, never to be seen sans burning cigarette, bottled beer and dog-eared book, said something like this when he happened…
Pet Sounds: Jason S Polley
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.] Co-opting Cool: The Figurative and Literal Death of Nirvana [The Keywords] These “keys” are in no particular order,…
“Comics and Graphic Narratives; or, The Art of the Matter” by Jason S Polley
The fourth-year English course “Comics and Graphic Narratives”, a title as ambiguous as, say, “Short Stories and Novels”, and even the more equivocal “Prose Fiction”, is organised into several unstable thematic groupings: underground comics (or comix), revisionist narratives within the mainstream, memoirs & confessionals, new journalism, and auteur comics. The texts most recently selected for…
Announcement: Members of the ENG Department will read at Hong Kong’s #WRITERSRESIST
Throughout the US and in other countries, writers are organizing their own Writers Resist events on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, January 15, 2017. Invited speakers will read from a curated selection of diverse writers’ voices that speak to the ideals of Democracy and free expression. The public is encouraged to attend. —WRITERS RESIST On…
“Con- or perhaps, Sub-juncts” by Lian-Hee Wee
And with conjunctions bookending this sentence it conjoins to anything but.* Nor yet for so, exhausting all the co-ordinations, that is why true freedom and democracy are faulted for being too difficult. Because subordinates are pliable, As long as, by the time, even if, in case, lest, once, provided that we do not realize how…
Alumni News: The Release of Ordinary People (2015)
Ordinary People (2015) is Chantaiman‘s debut album which draws influences from nineties Britpop and post-punk. In Chantaiman’s words, the album is ‘a celebration of reality and dreams, of lust and love, of fear and courage, of defeat and victory. This album is our gift to all the ordinary people.’ Ordinary People was recorded, mixed, and produced entirely…
“Every Me A We, Every We A Me” by Jason S Polley
rare indeed a man sent me an autograph from Beau Jack. he said that Beau Jack asked him to send it on to me. I told the man to tell Beau Jack that I was honored. have you heard of him? he was a prizefighter. many men box but he was a fighter, a terror,…
“The Rest” by Jason S Polley
The eulogy. A genre in itself. A lamentation, a recollection, a commemoration. And, in too-rare circumstances, such as this one, a relief, and I hope, a celebration. I suspect that most of us gathered in this citadel of mercy, of forgiveness, and above all of communion, of community, have already travailed through certain stages of…
“Loss of the Rule of Law” by Lian-Hee Wee
March 23, 2015 Pixen and Schulos hold dear the Rule of Law. Citizens in their city too are swayed often by arguments on what might threaten the rule of law. The rule of law has been demonstrated to be superior to other forms of government thus far. Yes, the law serves only those who can…
“Ever More Ed Perfect Perfect Im More Ever” by Jason S Polley
“I See You, Ménilmontant” by Tammy Ho Over Wards back read re please sdraw kcab daer er esaelP is wards back it If ohw syaS is read re read re If si daer er daer er fI And not simply read If can read simple be ever fI If work krow fI Smell Correct…
“A Cantonese Curse / against the Fur Industry / in Hong Kong English” by Lian-Hee Wee
Nico said, ‘ Poor guy!’ Cheese in buns chart low sea fart. Mob pays the young Czar. Translation: Zombies on the road. Shorted rectums, useless dongs. The dregs who flay kids. Note: The haiku is to be read in Hong Kong English (with her special syllable structures) to reveal the Cantonese curse (translated). Thanks to…
Announcement: Zabrina Lo awarded CY Tung Scholarship to join Spring 2016 voyage of Semester at Sea
Pictured: Zabrina Lo (right) with Jason S Polley, who recommended Zabrina for the scholarship Zabrina Lo (English Language and Literature, Year 3), co-editor of Department of English’s Edge: HKBU Creative Journal and the First Prize Winner of the English Poetry Contest 2015, has been awarded the CY Tung Scholarship to spend a semester on the…
Ongoing Moments: Jason S Polley
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] This is a photo of a photo of me. Believe it or believe it not. But this—this this—is not about me. Or, actually, meaning really, this is…
“Narrative” by Jason S Polley
. My tattoos, or, rather, my single narrative tattoo, essentially charts the Eastward migration of Buddhism from its Hindu sources in India through its multiple manifestations / incarnations / influences in Tibet, Myanmar, Thailand, Indochina, China, and, finally Japan. Not unlike Shakespeare’s Parolles, from the ironically (at least from Parolles’ point of view) titled All’s…
“What Broccoli Tells Us About the Umbrella Movement” by Vinton Poon
From a poster “KEEP CALM & STAY TOGETHER” seen in Mong Kok. Photo by Jason S Polley. The people involved in the Umbrella Movements have been called many names by those who disagree with them. They were described as being ignorant, provoked, misinformed, and manipulated. In the eyes of the opposition, the protesters, who wore…
Umbrella Uprising — What We Think
. I have run out of umbrellas to lend to my students, braving all weathers, all scorn, for a future they no longer have any option but to believe in. Now it is my heart I would shelter them with. I do so happily, without reservation. They were the first, and will be the last,…
“cemetery miss you” by Jason S Polley
Jason S Polley at the Taj Mahal, Agra, India, mid-May 2004. Photo by Maria Fernanda Jaramillo Zapata. . . folder b file 1 0 min 17 sec hash it come in sheet with a stamp every sheet have to be stamp with a company name so you always want the company name its valuable you…
The Interrogative Mood: Questions with Jason S Polley
The following questions are taken from Padgett Powell’s The Interrogative Mood. If you could be instantly fluent in a language you do not now speak, what language would it be? I have two answers. Cantonese, both as a means to develop a deeper solidarity with the majority of my fellow Hong Kong residents and as a…
“shivers shove eyelids” by Jason S Polley
“Diptych: Above & Below” by JSP. 28 July 2010. McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India. shivers shove eyelids up breaking seal abrupt ending fireplace dreams to smell of smiling sun hiking himalayan ridgerange brand newborn days rays misty mystic mountain snow rock and open torii gate guesthouse door reveals curious never idle youthful eyes and…
“The Guess Who Quiz” by Heidi Huang
Click image to enlarge. From left to right: Florence Leung, Jason S Polley, Douglas Berman, Heidi Huang, Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, Jason Lee, Julia Wang, Ruth Hung and Stuart Christie. This “Guess Who Quiz” is actually ‘stolen’ from our students’ inspired descriptions of each teacher during our farewell dinner held on 2 May. When perusing the joyful photographs of that…
Department of English, Hong Kong Baptist University 