Description:
<jats:p>In recent years, interest in Hong Kong poetry in English has grown remarkably. Amidst all the excitement, the question has arisen as to how to define Hong Kong poetry in English. This paper is an attempt to provide an answer from linguistics. Subsumed under this controversy are three questions: What is poetry? What is good poetry? What is Hong Kong poetry? The first question has to take into account the revived interest in relating literary English to the general use of English. The second one relates to literary standards, which are inevitably tied to cultural norms of interaction and interpretation. The last one can be answered with reference to sociolinguistic concepts of speech communities. The paper deals briefly with the first two questions and focuses on the last. It affirms the existence of Hong Kong poetry in English. Each poet writing in or for Hong Kong may identify with more than one poetic community just as many users of English in Hong Kong may communicate with more than one group of English speakers. The application of linguistics to the task of defining Hong Kong poetry should offer insights towards a framework for identifying literary communities elsewhere.</jats:p>