Cha: An Asian Literary Journal

06/01/2025

香港十八區巡迴詩會2016年發起至今前後接近十年，今月18號迎來最後一場（第18場），在西貢區。參與讀詩的詩人包括飲江、洛楓、吳耀宗、文於天、曾淦賢、梁智、萍凡人、心雪、韓祺疇、池荒懸。歡迎報名到臨。

報名連結見留言。

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香港十八區巡迴詩會
第18場：西貢區
日　期：2025年1月18日（星期六）
時　間：下午2至5時
地　點：西貢萬宜灣文娛康樂中心。西貢萬年街25號
主辦機構 ：香港十八區巡迴詩會會社
海報設計/攝影：吳耀宗

06/01/2025

Jonathan Chan on B**g Joon-ho’s 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑒 and Jordan Peele’s 𝑈𝑠: "they draw on a lineage of fear toward the subterranean, of troglodytes that emerge from beneath the earth".

Read the essay here:
http://chajournal.blog/2024/01/06/parasite-us

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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS B**g Joon-Ho (director), Parasite, 2019. 132 min.Jordan Peele (director), Us, 2019, 116 min. The sociologist Teo You…

06/01/2025

/ 𝐽𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝐺𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑐 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑠 comprises four short stories: “The Surgery Room”, “The Holy Man of Mount Kōya”, “One Day in Spring”, and “Osen and Sōkichi”. These tales, written between 1895 and 1920, span the Meiji and Taishō eras. Inouye’s thoughtful arrangement invites readers into what Akutagawa Ryūnosuke termed “Kyōka’s world”, beginning with a relatable suburban Tokyo setting. This serves as a liminal space, easing readers into the more peculiar and labyrinthine landscapes of the Hida mountains and Kanagawa Prefecture, where unsettling events unfold and otherworldly beings dwell.

The stories deftly explore the tensions between progress and tradition, as well as the interplay of Japanese and Western cultures, extending these themes beyond the urban milieu. Kyōka examines these dynamics through the lives of diverse characters, including physicians, monks, travellers, prostitutes, and noblewomen. A common thread running through the narratives is the unpredictability—and, at times, absurdity—of human encounters, underscoring the randomness of life itself. /

https://chajournal.blog/2024/12/12/gothic-tales/
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📁RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Izumi Kyōka (author), Charles Shirō Inouye (translator and author of introduction and afterword), Japanese Gothic Tales, Univers…

06/01/2025

06/01/2025

/... 𝑃𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑊𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑠, a book-length poem that defies easy categorisation with its “structured improvisation,” hybridity, and intertextuality. It leaves me with a compelling sense of uncertainty. With Trump’s potential presidential resurgence, perhaps it is an opportune moment to revisit Pink Waves and its layered embodiment of historicity, where “women marched in 2017, in pink hats”.

Pink Waves is a “micro-translation” and a dialogue with an array of texts, including Waveform by Amber DiPietra and Denise Leto, and Adam Pendleton’s “Black Dada”. The result is an embrace of disruption, serving as an antidote to the normative violence born of a lack of imagination. Written during a three-day durational performance, Pink Waves adopts a “loose sonata form,” reminiscent of Kurt Schwitters’s Ur Sonata (1922). In musical terms, the sonata comprises three movements: “exposition,” “development,” and “recapitulation.” The “exposition” transitions from the original key to a new one; the “development” traverses various keys; and the “recapitulation” ultimately returns to the original key. /

https://chajournal.blog/2024/12/23/pink-waves/
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📁RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Sawako Nakayasu, Pink Waves, Omnidawn, 2022. 90 pgs. When I received Sawako Nakayasu’s Pink Waves, I was drawn to its cove…

06/01/2025

/ Bogart takes on the titular role, returning to his bar after World War II to see what remains of it—astonishingly, the building is still standing. Teru Shimada portrays his loyal friend and former judo partner, Ito; Florence Marly plays Trina, the woman Joe left behind; and Alexander Knox plays Mark, Trina’s husband. They echo, but never quite capture, the magical chemistry of Dooley Wilson, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid in Casablanca. Beyond Bogart, only Sessue Hayakawa shines as the villain, Baron Kimura, who coerces Joe into what he strongly suspects is a smuggling operation. /

https://chajournal.blog/2024/12/21/tokyo-joe/
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📁RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Stuart Heisler (director), Tokyo Joe, 1949. 89 min. Of all the gin joints in all the world, Humphrey Bogart had to walk into yet…

05/01/2025

[Cha: An Asian Literary Journal 𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗖𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧] From our Poetry Editor, Eric Yip:

/ 𝐶ℎ𝑎 is accepting submissions for a new poetry-focused section titled En Route on our main website http://www.asiancha.com/ We welcome a wide range of poems on any topic from poets with a connection to Asia. Translations into English are especially encouraged, including from endangered or underrepresented languages. We seek poems that think and feel concurrently, guiding readers to places hitherto unexplored. Submissions will be read on a rolling basis. /

𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲: https://chajournal.blog/2024/11/26/en-route/
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05/01/2025

/ I’ve worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist. I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.

The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump. There have been multiple articles recently about these men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations making their way to Mar-a-lago. The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner. /

https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post
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03/01/2025

今夜讀詩丨新年

懷抱花朵的孩子走向新年
為黑暗紋身的指揮啊
在傾聽那最短促的停頓
快把獅子關進音樂的牢籠
快讓石頭伴裝成隱士
在平行之夜移動

誰是客人?當所有的日子
傾巢而出在路上飛行
失敗之書博大精深

每一刻都是捷徑
我得以穿越東方的意義
回家,關上死亡之門

 ── 北島《新年 》
•
a child carrying flowers walks toward the new year
a conductor tattooing darkness
listens to the shortest pause

hurry a lion into the cage of music
hurry stone to masquerade as a recluse
moving in parallel nights

who's the visitor? when the days all
tip from nests and fly down roads
the book of failure grows boundless and deep

each and every moment's a shortcut
I follow it through the meaning of the East
returning home, closing death's door

(Translated by David Hinton with Yanbing Chen)

── Bei Dao, New Year 

  #香港國際詩歌之夜 #母語的邊界 #香港詩歌節基金會 #創始人北島 #元旦 #新年 'sDay

03/01/2025

𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐏𝐎𝐄𝐌𝐒—In a forthcoming issue of Hong Kong-based print bilingual (Chinese and English) poetry magazine, 𝑉𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒 & 𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑛𝑒 聲韻詩刊, we will devote an English-language section on INVOLUTION. We encourage poets and translators from all over the world to submit their poetry and translations on this theme. NOTE: Early submissions are preferred.

Previously unpublished poems written in English or newly translated into English on “Involution” can be sent to [email protected] before Friday 31 Januaty 2025 with the subject line “VV: Involution: [your initials]” for consideration. Each poet can submit up to two poems (please do not send us PDFs). Editor of the section: Tammy Lai-Ming Ho.

Poets whose work is accepted will be notified. If you do not receive a response within two weeks, please assume that your work has not been selected for publication.

𝑉𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒 & 𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑛𝑒 is a Hong Kong-based print bilingual (Chinese and English) poetry publication distributed by The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. We have previously published English-language sections on, among other topics, “Food”, “Ecopoetry”, “Estrangement”, “Emergency”, “Bullet”, “Virus”, “Masks”, “Home”, “Distance”, “Other”, “Mirror”, “Boar”, “Wall”, “Curel Spring”, “Departures”, “Beginnings”, "Neighbourhood", "Intervention", "Crossings", "Outsiders", "Whale", "Peace", "Dystopia", and most recently, "Lying Flat".

Our motto: “From Hong Kong to the World.”

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SUBSCRIBE to 𝑉𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒 & 𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑛𝑒 or BUY individual issues: https://bit.ly/2xfBHZn

VISIT 𝑉𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒 & 𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑛𝑒 website:
https://vvpoetry.com/

03/01/2025

聲韻詩刊 Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine
特別主題徵稿：「內捲」| Call for Poems: "Involution"
截稿日期：2025年1月31日 | Deadline: 31 Janunary 2025
注意：投稿時請註明主題 | Subject line “VV: Involution: [your initials]”
[email protected]

01/01/2025

Are you still with us?

23/12/2024