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: jsp
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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
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…
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…
“distrust friendly gentleman” by Jason S Polley
Photo by JSP. 6:40 am. Late July 2010. McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, India. distrust friendly gentleman who says Sit relax and Put ………….pack uptop and then appears outside your train ………….window and tells you to open it wide for its Very ………….hot humid and you talk about canada and germany and his Germany ………….girlfriend and the…
Department of English, Hong Kong Baptist University 