Last month my dog got published. This month it’s the turn of my 14 year old nephew Kaz! His photograph Hong Kong Storm has been chosen by Proverse Publishing and Chinese University Press as the book cover of Mingled Voices 7: the International Proverse Poetry Prize Anthology 2023! The anthology launches at the Proverse Spring Reception at the Helena May April 27! My poems Imagine Nation and Tidal Slave are among the poems that won places and I’ll be reading Tidal Slave at the event. Needless to say, this is causing a lot less excitement in my family.

https://proversepublishing.com/kasra-shroff-photography/

https://proversepublishing.com/mingled-voices-7/

https://www.amazon.com/Mingled-Voices-International-Anthology-Anthologies/dp/9888833383/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125166248-mingled-voices-7

https://cup.cuhk.edu.hk/Proversehk?product_id=4518

‘Hong Kong Storm’

I am away with the fairies that two of my strange experimental poems, Imagine Nation and Tidal Slave, have received places in the 2022 Proverse Poetry Prize and will be published in Chinese University Press and Proverse Publishing‘s anthology Mingled Voices 7. The anthology will be launched at the Proverse Spring Reception April 27, 2023. The winners and finalists were announced last night at the Proverse Autumn Reception at the Helena May. You can catch me reading one of them at a poetry event organised by Mind HK this coming Thursday! Click here for the lowdown!

My first poem, War of Voices, was awarded a place in 2020 and published in Mingled Voices 5. You can hear me reading it on VYP here. Thank you, Proverse! You have made me very happy.

After reading my first poem for the first time at the HKU Libraries Reading Club and miraculously resisting the impulse to sing it, more potential peril looms this week when I’ll be sneaking into the studio and recording War of Voices for Dr. Ahmed Elbeshlawy‘s Voice Your Passion poetry channel! The poem will be up Oct 18!

The poem was published by Proverse Publishing and Chinese University Press April 22, 2021 after winning a place in the 2020 Proverse Poetry Prize anthology, Mingled Voices 5.

https://cup.cuhk.edu.hk/MingledVoices5

I will be reading an extract from my (very long) debut poem War of Voices for HKU Libraries at an event organized by Proverse Publishing this Thursday (July 15) from 6-8pm!

The poem was published by Proverse and Chinese University Press April 22, 2021 after winning a place in the 2020 Proverse Poetry Prize anthology, Mingled Voices 5. A film of the event will be available on the ProverseHKU websites.

I have to admit I’m a little nervous about this. Not because I’m a nervous public speaker. Just because War of Voices is the first thing I’ve written where I don’t hear my own author’s voice AT ALL! Whose voice do I hear? Unfortunately, it’s Aled Jones’ voice, circa 1980s, when he sang the Christmas hit, Walking In The Air.

Why is this bad? Why do you think!!! Because I sound nothing like an 8 year old choir boy with an angelic voice. I sound, at best, like a cat that’s being strangled slowly to death by a python. So I guess my greatest fear is of breaking into song midway through the reading.

Your prayers that this will NOT happen on Thursday are very much appreciated at this difficult time.

https://www.hku.hk/press/news_detail_22997.html

https://proversepublishing.com/mingled-voices-5

Woohoo! My first attempt at penning a poem was published April 22, 2021 by Proverse Publishing and Chinese University Press and my copy arrived today! Mingled Voices 5 is an anthology of poems on the theme of ‘Hunger’ by poets around the world that won or were shortlisted for the 2020 International Proverse Poetry Prize

All the featured poets are incredible and I can only put my own inclusion down to a fortuitous accident or a moment of drug or alcohol relapse on the part of the editors. 🤣 Mingled Voices 5 is available in paperback and as an ebook. It’s free to subscribers of Kindle Unlimited!

The 2021 Proverse Poetry Prize is now open for entries! This year’s theme is ‘Shielding’ open to interpretation any way the poet chooses. Submissions close June 30, 2021!

Also open for submissions by Hong Kong based poets is RTHK‘s annual poetry competition. This year’s theme is ‘White’ and open to misinterpretation any way the reader chooses! Entries close July 12!

One little hit of dopamine I experienced last year was winning a place in the 2020 Proverse Poetry Prize Anthology for my first bash at writing a poem! War of Voices is my little rant on social media, populism and propaganda. The anthology, called Mingled Voices 5, will be published by Proverse and Chinese University Press as an ebook and in paperback THIS WEEK (April 22), but is already available for preorder on Amazon!

I’m also writing a humorous short story for the Hong Kong Writer’s Circle‘s 2021 anthology. This year’s theme is After The Storm. I seem to have been mentioned in the same sentence asstormquite a bit recently, which is either profoundly disturbing or deliciously serendipitous. If I don’t blow myself out, the anthology will be launched at the HK Lit Fest and published in Nov!

https://cup.cuhk.edu.hk/MingledVoices5