Poetry and conflict: International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong 2015

Following the enormous success of the 2009, 2011 and 2013 occasions of the International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong, the “International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong 2015” (IPNH K2015) will be held in November 2015. The Organizing Committee of IPNH K2015 will continue to accomplish the mission of making literature a more prominent part of daily life in Hong Kong, by organizing more literary activities such as this biennial event. IPNH K2015 brings together internationally renowned poets from different partsof the world to create opportunities for college and high-school students, as well as for local writers and the public to meet the invited poets through IPNH K2015 activities, broaden their horizon in the reading of world poetry, and be aspired by the writing of their local environment. IPNH K2015 also seeks to foster close collaboration with institutions of tertiary and secondary education, connecting higher education with the public at large for the sake of knowledge transfer.

The theme of IPNH K2015 is “Poetry and Conflict,” which explores the multi-layered relationships between poetry and war. Poetry has been generally recognized as the highest form of language, while war inflicts the most pains on human history. IPNH K2015 invites world-acclaimed poets from war-troubled countries in the past such as the United States (Anne Waldman, Peter Cole), Japan (Tawada Yoko, Mizuta Noriko), South Korea (Kim Hye-soon), Macedonia (Nikola Madzirov), Catalonia (Gemma Gorga), Portugal (Fernando Pinto do Amaral), Burma (ko ko thett), Morroco (Mohammed Bennis), Mainland China (Wang Xiaoni), Taiwan (Chen Li), Hong Kong (Yin Jiang), and those of today such as Israel (Agi Mishol) and Palestine (Ghassan Zaqtan, Najwan Darwish). These poets, who engage their works with “war” as a topic, are going to exchange views and explore the many layers where equanimous poetry is able to play its role in the most violent events in human history, and in so doing, encourage writers and readers of war-free Hong Kong to reflect upon the local milieu in a global framework.