As part of our help in the Community Rotary Club of Macau co-sponsored Poetry translations between English and Chinese in 2010. We were delighted to have as our guests on the 17th Feb two members from the team that travelled to Australia to work with translators there last year.
We had a most enlightening talk from Dr Christopher Kelen from Macau University who edited many of the books we were shown including our own sponsored edition “Wombats of Bandanon” ‘Twenty Australian Poets’. Iris Fan Xing gave a reading and explained some of the difficulties in providing a translation from Chinese to English and visa versa. We hope that further cultural exchanges will be possible and are very pleased with the results of this collaboration. Both Aris and Kit gave a good account of the Association of Stories in Macacu (ASM) and would like to make more publications available to the public. ASM have produced over 50 publications in the last year and the figure is likely to increase as more local talent is recruited and inspired by the work they have produced.
For details of their work visit their website here and also their Facebook page…
below are some sites of interest including Dr Kit Kelen’s own Bundanon blog — to give you more of an idea of the place — also a bio note
plus a soft copy of the ASM catalogue
Dr Christopher Kelen,
Associate Professor and Editor of Poetry Macao
English Department,
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities,
University of Macau, P.O. Box 3001
Taipa, Macao S.A.R., China
telephone:
853 83978 251 (office)
853 83974 628 (home)
853 2883 8312 (fax)
e-mail: KitKelen@umac.mo
https://kitkelensbundanonblog.
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https://theabstractpics.
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https://sketchesofmacao.
https://
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https://storycirclemanual.
latest books – please have your library order them –
theory –
Poetry, Consciousness and Community. (199pp)
published in 2009 by Rodopi Press, Amsterdam
Vol 23 in the series Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
on-line orders through https://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?
poetry –
Dredging the Delta (book of Macao poems and sketches, 102pp)
published in 2007 by Cinnamon Press (UK)
on-line orders through
God preserve me from those who want what’s best for me(74pp)
published in 2009 by Picaro Press, (N.S.W, Australia).
In Conversation with the River(140pp)
published in 2010 by VAC (Chicago, IL)
on-line orders through
Short bio note:
Christopher (Kit) Kelen’s (客遠文) most recent volumes of poetry are God preserve me from those who want what’s best for me, published in 2009 by Picaro Press, (N.S.W, Australia) and in conversation with the river, published in 2010 by VAC (Chicago, USA). For the last ten years Kelen has taught Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Macau in south China.
Long bio note:
Christopher (Kit) Kelen (客遠文) is a well known Australian scholar, poet and artist whose literary works have been widely published and broadcast since the mid seventies. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature describes Kelen’s work as ‘typically innovative and intellectually sharp’. Kelen holds degrees in literature and linguistics from the University of Sydney and two doctorates from the University of Western Sydney – a PhD in the area of poetics and an EdD in Critical Pedagogy of Creative Writing.
In 1988 Kelen was winner of two major poetry prizes conducted for the Australian Bicentennial. His poem ‘Views from Pinchgut’ won the ABC’s competition for a poem of eighty lines or less. Kelen’s first volume of poetry The Naming of the Harbour and the Trees won an Anne Elder Award in 1992. In 1996 Kelen was Writer-in-Residence for the Australia Council at the B.R.Whiting Library in Rome. In 1999 he won the Blundstone National Essay Contest, conducted by Island journal. He also won second prize in the Gwen Harwood Poetry Award that year.
Kelen’s fourth book of poems Republics – dealing with the ethics of identity in millennial Australia – was published by Five Islands Press in Australia in 2000. A fifth volume New Territories – a pilgrimage through Hong Kong, structured after Danté’s Divine Comedy – was published with the aid of the Hong Kong Arts Development Board in 2003. In 2004 Kelen’s chapbook Wyoming Suite – a North American sojurn – was released by VAC Publishing in Chicago. In 2005 Kelen’s long poem ‘Macao’ was shortlisted for the prestigious Newcastle Poetry Prize and a re-edited version of Tai Mo Shan appeared in Southerly. 2006 saw the publication by ASM in Macao of a book of Macao stories and poems titled A Map of the Seasons, and a short sci-fi historical novel, A Wager with the Gods. In 2007, Kelen edited a feature entitled ‘Poetry of Response’ which appears in Jacket magazine. 2007 saw the publication by Cinnamon Press in the UK of a volume of Macao poems titled Dredging the Delta. A bilingual English/Chinese volume Ke Yuan Wen Kan Aomen (Kit Kelen’s Macao) also appeared that year. And in 2007 Kelen was winner of Westerly’s Patricia Hackett Prize.
In 2008 VAC published Kelen’s eighth volume, After Meng Jiao: Responses to the Tang Poet. The most recent of Kelen’s ten volumes of poetry are God preserve me from those who want what’s best for me, published in 2009 by Picaro Press, (N.S.W, Australia) and In Conversation with the River (VAC 2010). In 2009 Kelen was shortlisted for the PressPress Poetry Chapbook Award and his volume of poems the whole forest dancing was published by PressPress in 2010 in English, Chinese, Portuguese and Italian editions. In 2010, Kelen’s poem ‘time with the sky’ (inspired by a 2009 Bundanon residency) placed second in the Newcastle Poetry Prize.
Apart from poetry, Kelen publishes in a range of theoretical areas including writing pedagogy, ethics, rhetoric, cultural and literary studies and various intersections of these. In 2010 Kelen coordinated a poetry translation retreat at Bundanon in NSW, part of an ongoing project translating Australian poets into Chinese. A first volume in that series, Fires Rumoured about the City – Fourteen Australian Poets was published in 2009. Kelen has also been co-editor of two important Macao poetry anthologies – I Roll the Dice – Contemporary Macao Poetry (2008) and Portuguese Poets of Macao (2009), both bilingual editions published by ASM. In 2009 Kelen published two theoretical volumes concerning poetry; with Rodopi in Amsterdam: Poetry, Consciousness and Community; and with ASM in Macao: a first book length English-language study of Macao poetry: City of Poets.
With regard to his own visual arts practice, in December of 2006 Kelen had an ink and water colour exhibition at Creative Macau (Macau Cultural Centre) titled: Bridges and Boats. The catalogue for this exhibition was CCI’s 2007 calendar. In 2008-9 Kelen’s exhibition palimps-ink was held at the Macao’s Albergue Gallery. Kelen’s most recent solo exhibition, held at the Fantasia Galleries, was to the single man’s hut, a homage to the Australian painter, Arthur Boyd.
Kelen is an Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of Macau, where he has taught Literature and Creative Writing since 2000. During this time he has mentored many local writers, seeing through to publication numerous first novels and volumes of stories and poetry. Kelen is the editor of the on-line journal Poetry Macao and poetry editor for the monthly lifestyle/current affairs journal Macao Closer.
