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THE REGION : China Poet Laureate Seeks Poems for Contest

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Classical Chinese poetry can be exquisite but difficult to compose. Now comes Kuanling Fan, a poet laureate from China, who exhorts those with writing aspirations to try their hand at a new type of classic Chinese poetry he has invented called “Hsinku.”

Fan is soliciting poems in English or Chinese for a worldwide Hsinku contest to be held in Taipei and urges people to send their works directly to him. The deadline is May 31.

The rules for Hsinko are simple: Four lines per poem, with no limit on the number of words per line, unless the writing is in Chinese, in which case there must be the same number of words in each line. The second and fourth lines of each poem must rhyme.

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Fan, who met with writers and poets in the San Gabriel Valley last week, gives an example of a favorite Hsinko poem, called Shining Moon:

“The day is late and children starving/Beyond old bamboo doors in valley great/She smiles only upon rich men’s houses/Why does shining moon discriminate?”

Submissions can be sent directly to Kuanling Fan, Suite 13A, 177 Chung Hsiao E. Road, Sec. 4, Taipei, Taiwan. They can also be faxed to: 886-2-711-1080.

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