带一枚苦瓜去旅行 Travelling with a bitter melon

"It is fitting that Travelling With A Bitter Melon, the most comprehensive collection of Leung Ping-kwan's poetry, should come at a tim e when Hong Kong is experiencing an upsurge of interest in home-grown writing. Fitting, because this bilingual volume will serve to remind those striving to forge Hong Kong's English-language voice that the city's most gifted poet has been writing and publishing in Chinese for more than a quarter of a century, and has built up an invaluable body of work over that time. This book is a must for anyone who takes Hong Kong writing seriously."The complicated subject of Hong Kong identity dominates. Leung focuses deliberately on the ordinary: a teacup, a tree, a deserted tram depot, a bitter melon. They are our shared images and they are treated tenderly."A thread of disciplined intelligence runs through Leung's work, lending these mundane images a singular power. The first poem in the volume, 'Tea,' reveals the poet's trademark preoccupation with food as a metaphor. In this poem,