Dr Verner Bickley, MBE, Co-founder of the International Proverse Prize, announced the Proverse Prize 2017 Finalists -- C.P. Byron, Chi Shun Feng, Wayne Furlong, Carolina Ilica, Sergio Monteiro, Damon Rose, Hayley Ann Solomon -- and presented certificates to those attending.

Maria Elena Blanco came from Chile and Margus Lattik (Mathura) from Estonia to receive their International Proverse Poetry Prize 2017 3rd and 2nd-prize awards and certificates respectively, receiving certificates from Dr Verner Bickley, MBE, Proverse Poetry Prize Co-founder.

First-prize winner, Dr Jack Mayer (Vermont), sent a message and his poem and message were read by Verner. Congratulations and best wishes were sent, among others, by 3rd-prize winners Keith Nunes (New Zealand) and Edward Tiesse (USA), and Honorary Advisor Mrs Margaret Clarke (Oxford, UK). 3rd-prize winner, Vinita Agrawal (Mumbai, India), sent a videoed message (you can see this on Youtube).

Dr George Cautherley, OBE, introduced the history of the Heard family, giving context to the recently-published, "Through American Eyes: The Journals of George Washington (Farley) Heard", edited by Dr Gillian Bickley, transcribed by Mrs Chris Duggan, published by Proverse Hong Kong.

"MIngled Voices 2", the International Proverse Poetry Prize 2017 Anthology, was launched at this event. Those poets present  who won a place in the Anthology read a poem from the Anthology.

We are grateful to Mr Peter Sidorko, Hong Kong University Librarian, one of the Honorary Advisors to both the Proverse Prize and the Proverse Poetry Prize for joining us at this event.

The photos below broadly follow the sequence of the evening.

Many thanks to those who sent us photographs of the event!

Guest Helen Davis very kindly again took up the role of "official photographer". Other guests who sent photographs include: Anna Blanco, Ho Cheung Lee (Peter), Polly Ho, Susan Lavender, Margaret Leung, Sergio Monteiro, Simon Overton, Jun Pan (Janice), Janny Chi Wai. Thank you to all!

Videos

Video of the event edited by Felix Wong from footage taken by Simon Overton, then Chairman of the Hong Kong Writers' Circle, and his team:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT0s3xAIM4o

Sent by the writers and poets themselves and already uploaded to youtube are:

Brief message from Vinita Agrawal, Proverse Poetry Prize 2017 3rd-prize winner (please copy and paste the link that follows to your browser): https://youtu.be/9nuG_ENktXA

Part of a reading by Janice Pun, Proverse Poetry Prize 2017 winner of a place in the Proverse Poetry Prize 2017 Anthology, "Mingled Voices 2": https://youtu.be/dJ6qrgPycTk

Proverse Prize 2017: presentation to those finalists present at the Proverse Spring Reception 2018 of a certificate: https://youtu.be/aUEMwf4fRcs (Chi Shun Feng, Wayne Furlong, Sergio Monteiro)

Most Proverse Hong Kong titles (including those launched at the Proverse Spring Reception 2018) can be seen and purchased at the Proverse page on the website of our Hong Kong based distributor, the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press:  https://cup.cuhk.edu.hk/Proversehk

Also from amazon an other online retailers.