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Poet inspired by spontaneity of life in the city

Local author Gillian Bickley has produced a new book of poetry called Sightings. Launching today with a reading at the K.K.Leung Building's function room at the University of Hong Kong, the anthology draws on her experience as a literary editor and history researcher. The collection is also inadvertently more topical than it might appear.

'In some of the poems I am conscious of Hong Kong's past and today,' she explained.

'There is one about the shrinking harbour, but that was written before the whole Star Ferry controversy.'

She suggests that most of the poems are snapshots of life in the city - some pieces are not actually set here. Bickley describes them as composed of many small spontaneous moments.

'Sometimes little things on the street catch your attention and I write about that. One time I was thinking of disobeying a red light and was about to cross the road. The driver of a truck just looked at me and smiled.

'He didn't blare his horn but just smiled and I retreated. I thought that was very courteous of him and I wrote a poem about that.'

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