With recent examples from the perpetually transitory state of contemporary Hong Kong, this paper argues that an ambivalent voice can be found in erasure poetry, potentially permitting a metaphysical possibility of temporal and spatial transcendence that can be understood through concepts of hauntology and dis-appearance. In the silent and silencing form of erasure, the poetic voice oscillates between oppression and accusation, a fission between the autobiographical and the artificial. This liminality, resonant in Paul de Man's "Autobiography as De-Facement", induces an anxiety about identity and voice that the reader is desperate to escape. Yet there remains to be explored a muted voice unique to erasure if we opt to dwell in this liminal space and observe the concrete form's composite relation to other mediums, as a number of Hong Kong poets have demonstrated. Paired with ideas related to fictionality, visual iconicity, and cinema, the evocative yet elusive form of erasure poetry thus provides a fertile ground for compounded meditations about personal grief, identity and sexuality, and post-colonial phenomena.

Authors:
Hoi Tung (Janice) Lam, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

About the Presenter(s)
Janice Lam Hoi Tung is a final-year student in the MPhil in English Literary Studies program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include Hong Kong Anglophone poetry, creative writing and visual cultures.

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