For the Record and Other Poems of Hong Kong

The sixty poems in Bickley's first collection were written during almost thirty years' residence in Hong Kong. Most are on explicitly Hong Kong, urban, and green topics, and reflect the writer's knowledge and personal experience as an expatriate. Poems about Chinese traditions mix with poems on anti-consumerism and cultural variety. She finds significance in everyday social encounters and reflects on a variety of cultural events: for example, a performance by the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Lorin Maazel, at the Tenth Hong Kong Arts Festival; Chinese Operas performed as part of a Festival of Chinese Opera, which was held some months after the return of the former British Crown Colony to the Government of Mainland China; and the Equestrian opera of Saumur, held as part of The French May. More personal poems portray family relationships, conveying the tensions caused by deep feeling, indirectly expressed, and the concerned sadness of final parting. The book concludes with, Literary Odyssey in Hong Kong: A Personal Narrative, the text of a talk given to the English Society of the University of Hong Kong, on 19 April 2002, during the English Festival. This talk reflects on the important question which some Chinese Hong Kong writers face, whether to choose to produce their literary work in Chinese or English. The essay also describes incidents in Hong Kong's English Language literary scene, beginning in 1970. The two CDs included with the book are a professional recording of all sixty poems, read by the author herself.