To celebrate the tenth anniversary issue of Cha and to mark the twentieth anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover, we are hosting Cha International Poetry Prize 2017, in collaboration with PEN Hong Kong.
The competition is open to ALL poets. Thanks to several generous sponsors from the Asia-Pacific region, including the NINJA! Arts Grant, we are able to offer a total prize money of US$3201 (First Prize US$1501; Second Prize US$800; Third Prize US$400 and five Commended Prizes, each US$100). All eight winning poems will be published in the tenth anniversary issue of Cha, due out in late December 2017. As ever with Cha contests, there is no entry fee.
INFORMATION
- Each poet can submit up to TWO poems, which should be sent to prize@asiancha.com with the subject line “International: Your Name”.
- Each poem must be a translation (loosely defined) of a text (loosely defined) from/about Hong Kong or China, written originally in English or Chinese, into a poem that is about contemporary Hong Kong.*
- When submitting your work to us, please include the title(s) of the source text(s).
- Each poem should not be longer than 60 lines.
- Selected poets will be asked to write an explanatory note (500 words or above) addressing their choice of texts and methods.
- We reserve the right not to award the prize(s) if no suitable submissions are received.
- Submission period: Thursday 15 June 2017 – Friday 15 September 2017
JUDGES
- Tammy Ho Lai-Ming Tammy Ho Lai-Ming is founding co-editor of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, founding member and Vice President of PEN Hong Kong, and Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. Her translations have been published in World Literature Today, Chinese Literature Today, Drunken Boat and Pathlight and from Chinese University Press. Her first poetry collection is Hula Hooping (2015) and she was awarded the Young Artist Award in Literary Arts (Hong Kong Arts Development Council) in 2016.
. - Lucas Klein Lucas Klein is a father, writer, and translator whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Jacket, Rain Taxi, CLEAR, Comparative Literature Studies, and PMLA, and from Fordham, Black Widow, Zephyr, Chinese University Press, and New Directions. Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong, he is an executive editor of the Journal of Oriental Studies. His translation Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems of Xi Chuan won the 2013 Lucien Stryk Prize, and his October Dedications, translations of the poetry of Mang Ke, will be available soon. New York Review Books will be publishing his translations of Tang dynasty poet Li Shangyin.
*Each poem submitted to us has to be — a translation of / an adaptation of / a response to / a comment on, etc. — another text that is about Hong Kong or China. Please note that all poems submitted to us should be about contemporary Hong Kong. Some examples of the kind of work we are looking for: Changing and poems discussed in this World Literature Today essay.
