In mid-2021 The Sciku Project teamed up with the Literature and Science Hub at the University of Liverpool to run the ‘Research in Verse Poetry Competition’, open to staff and postgraduate research students across the university to submit poems about their research subject. The competition saw poems addressing all sorts of topics, ranging from gravity to slavery to life in the lab.
Third prize was won by Dr Lee Tsang for his poem ‘Apparent Horizons’:
Apparent Horizons
I am what I am and what I’m not.
I’m the acts and non-acts of
‘might’ and ‘forgot’.
More than that.
I am the suns I never had.
I’m the light that
moves
both outwards
and in.
I am the Green Ray,
a moment
of fusion where
Apparent Horizons play with time.
As you are to me
I’m the passing cusp of
hopes and fears
for suns untamed.
I am the Light
both extinguished
and aflame.
Background
Dr Lee Tsang is a musician of dual heritage who takes on multiple roles in crossover works. His poem was written while reflecting on complex systems in his own practice, as demonstrated in Twisting Ways (2020, 2020/2021), the latest output from a longstanding partnership with Canadian jazz-classical pianist and composer David Braid. The poem contemplates philosophical and psychological issues relating to agency, identity, and fluid performance/compositional processes in light of Korsyn’s espousal of Harold Bloom’s Anxiety of Influence for musical contexts. You can connect with Lee on Twitter here: @l_tsang
Further Reading:
Bloom, H. (1973). Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press.
Korsyn, K. (1991). ‘Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence’, Music Analysis, 10(1/2), pp. 3-72.
Tsang, L. (2015). David Braid’s ‘Resolute Bay’ with Sinfonia UK Collective. Toronto: K52 Music. Available at: http://www.sinfonia-uk-collective.org/
Tsang, L. (2016). ‘David Braid: Flow’. In Flow: David Braid + Epoque Quartet [CD liner notes]. New York, NY: Steinway & Sons. Available at: http://www.sinfonia-uk-collective.org/flow_albumNotes.pdf
Tsang, L. (2018). David Braid: Corona Divinae Misericordiae [CD, B07KZTWBJL]. Epoque Chamber Orchestra, Patricia O’Callaghan, Elmer Iseler Singers, Sinfonia UK Collective. Toronto: K52 Music.
Tsang, L. (2020). Tsang’s musical poetry (2018-2020) for ‘Twisting Ways’ (Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra 2020). Available at: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3110815/
Tsang, L. (2020/2021). ‘The Hand’, ‘Hope Shadow’ and ‘Lydian Sky’, Twisting Ways: The Music of David Braid and Philippe Côté [CD, WJOCD0005]. Winnipeg, MB: Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra.