Poppies by the Motorway

Agnes S.L. Lam, born in Hong Kong, later studied in Singapore and America. In 2012, she retired as Professor from the University of Hong Kong. She also held visitorships from Fulbright, the British Council and several universities at different times. Representative works include: Woman to woman and other poems (1997), Water wood pure splendour (2001) and A pond in the sky (2013). Some of her poems have been translated into German, Italian and other languages. An Honorary Fellow in Writing by the University of Iowa (2008), she was awarded the Nosside International Poetry Prize (Special Mention, 2008). In 2009, she also received a Commendation from the Home Affairs Bureau, HKSAR, in recognition of her outstanding achievements in international arts and cultural activities. As a researcher, she has long been well known for her pioneering volume, Language education in China: Policy and experience from 1949 (2005, HKU Press). More recently, she is also noted for her work on Asian poetry in English. Her book, Becoming poets: The Asian English experience (2014, Peter Lang), ‘with its breadth of reference and depth of investigation’, has been hailed as ‘a cogent assessment of the Asian English experience’ (Asiatic, Dec 2015, reviewer: Murari Prasad).