Within a Sky Full of Earth

The odyssey of joining 33 musical projects together, from Portugal and from the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, is finally out of the box with mostly all of the aims of Project T(H)REE achieved. After one year of detailed work and effort with the participation of more than one hundred people, David Valentim, the producer, taking all the credits of this olympic challenge, and Bloom * Creative Network, a part of the engine, have launched the first III CD last weekend in Hong Kong and Macau, with two successful events.

T(H)REE is a musical project that brings together for the very first time, on the same record, modern musicians from Portugal, Macau and Hong Kong. Wishing to materialize and shape a truthful blend of cultures the idea also comes from the significant ambition to enhance local music creation beyond its borders. Reaching distant domains, bringing the steer to extensive forms and new contacts as musical and cultural projects that otherwise would never taken place. This project is also born under the structure of a pure and boundless dialogue, where the finest blend of creative processes, sounds and distinctive ways of making music flow in a world without space and distance, making technology the elemental connection and the convergence point. The final result is a surprise and an outlook reference for the music scene of the three territories involved.

III T(h)ree • New Musical Roots from Portugal, Hong Kong and Macau
Concept and Production: David Valentim • Graphic Design: Alexandre Paixão • Photos: Ana Mendonça, António Falcão, David Valentim, Hina Shimomura, Paulo Carneiro • Texts: António Falcão, Erik Piece, Rui Dinis, Yuen Chi-Chung • Mastered by: Alok Leung • Presented and distributed by: Bloom * Creative Network

...
T(H)REE is on sale in the following places:

HONG KONG
• White Noise Records [http://www.whitenoiserecords.org]
• Kubrick [http://www.kubrick.com.hk]
• Zoo Records [http://www.zoo-records.com]

MACAU
• St. Paul's Fine Arts Gallery [http://www.stpaulscorner.com]
• Portuguese Bookshop [Rua de S. Domingos 18-20 R/C]
• Pinto Music [Senado Square • next door to Starbucks 1st floor]
• Lines Lab | Bloom [Creative Albergue • Calçada da Igreja de S. Lázaro, 8]

ORDER ONLINE here.

Suddenly we're gone. We didn't announce it, didn't tell anyone, it just happened. But we're not gone for good. We're building a new spot. Ring Joid already found a new home here. We'll coming next. But this space will not die. Stay tuned!

Bring Your Best Disguise and Show Who You Really Are!

After the success of the New Year's Eve wonderground party this is the second event that Bloom is organizing at the Rooftop. Carnival is gone, but we're still here for the occasion. Is not the Brazilian stuff or Halloween or whatever, it's wild! It's the show where you can bring all of you to stage and play whatever you like.

Who are you? Do you really know?
So... BRING YOUR BEST DISGUISE AND SHOW WHO YOU REALLY ARE!

This is a 'masquerade party', a different night, everybody should come with a mask or play their best character. :-There will be great music and lots of fun! Don't miss it!

WE'LL HAVE GREAT CAIPIRIÑAS and Bloom will offer some prizes for the best self-made disguises!

VENUE: ST. PAUL'S CORNER • ROOFTOP BAR
Travessa de S. Paulo • Macau
FROM 10.00 PM TO 3.00 AM [last order at 2.30 am]

Cidade
Sem muros nem ameias
Gente igual por dentro
Gente igual por fora
Onde a folha da palma
afaga a cantaria
Cidade do homem
Não do lobo, mas irmão
Capital da alegria

Braço que dormes
nos braços do rio
Toma o fruto da terra
É teu a ti o deves
lança o teu desafio

Homem que olhas nos olhos
que não negas
o sorriso, a palavra forte e justa
Homem para quem
o nada disto custa
Será que existe
lá para os lados do oriente
Este rio, este rumo, esta gaivota
Que outro fumo deverei seguir
na minha rota?
por JOSÉ AFONSO

Desta guerra entre Bruno e o resto do mundo não é difícil adivinhar quem foi o único morto. Mas nem depois de morto o seu fantasma ficou quieto. Se no século XIX parecia finalmente descansar como mártir da todo‑poderosa ciência, arrumado no panteão [...] já no meio das chamas do cadafalso, com um olhar turvo e arrogante, desviou a vista do crucifixo que lhe apresentavam, e acabou “queimado vivo”, consciente de morrer “mártir, e de boa mente, pois que sua alma subiria junto àquele fumo” para ir reconjugar-se com a alma do universo.
in TRATADO DE MAGIA • EDIÇÕES TINTA DA CHINA

Como foi anunciado aqui e sem grande alarido da nossa parte, devido ao tufão e à crescente corrente de água e por tudo o que aconteceu posteriormente, a Bloom * Creative Network levou Carlos Marreiros à Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universade de Hong Kong dando início às palestras de Outono organizadas por esta instituição. A ideia era levar também o complemento dos livros, sobre a arquitectura de Macau e em específico sobre o multifacetado arquitecto macaense, ocasião que não se chegou a realizar. Acabámos por não estar em condições de acompanhar a pequena comitiva que se deslocou ao território vizinho porque no dia anterior o horizonte era bem diferente.
A palestra intitulada "Tracing Lines Between Two Worlds" acabou por ser um sucesso, com uma audiência repleta e uma grande projecção na imprensa local das duas RAE's. Para nós foi uma grande satisfação ter estabelecido este intercâmbio. É fulcral para o nosso projecto, na necessidade de discussão de todas as suas amplitudes, poder falar, mostrar e discutir tudo o que nos (des)encanta. Foi a primeira colaboração com esta instituição universitária, outras oportunidades surgirão para a contínua repercussão do nosso desígnio, e referimos aqui o "projecto" desta cidade como espaço multicultural e criativo. Para que não se esqueça é necessário incluir esta mescla de muita coisa e de coisa nenhuma que vive e ferve por entre as margens desta terra que há muito tempo tem o nome de Macau. Por alguma razão viemos aqui parar, por outra iremos algum dia partir. Até lá é preciso continuar e fazer a ligação entre estes mundos da realidade e da imaginação. Foi nesse âmbito, para além da clara alusão Oriente/Ocidente, que demos o título a esta sessão. Agradecemos aqui ao Arquitecto Carlos Marreiros pela pronta disponibilidade e a Ralph Lerner, o Decano da Faculdade de Arquitectura de Hong Kong, por ter dado a melhor continuação à nossa iniciativa.
Fica aqui a reportagem do Hoje Macau pela mão de José Manuel Simões.

Carlos Marreiros entusiasma plateia em conferência proferida em Hong Kong
'A arquitectura serve para promover a felicidade'

Carlos Marreiros, um arquitecto com alma, esteve na Faculdade de Arquitectura de Hong Kong onde foi escutado por uma pequena multidão que se rendeu aos seus dotes de oratória, experiência e ousadia.

À conferência, inserida nas Palestras de Outono e realizada em parceria com a Bloom Creative Network de Macau (que alagou mas não morreu), compareceram cerca de 150 pessoas, na sua maioria estudantes de arquitectura, mas também professores e arquitectos, inclusivamente Ronald Lu, Presidente do Instituto de Arquitectura de Hong Kong.
O arquitecto de Macau falou sobre as relações entre arquitectura, sociedade e economia, debruçou-se sobre a arquitectura da miscigenação e da transgressão — sobretudo a da sua cidade — afirmou que “Macau transgride pois, desde as gaiolas de ferro até aos volumes e tamanhos, há muitas coisas que não deveriam sequer existir”.
No seu discurso, percorreu o património construído no Território, desde o chinês e o português até ao dos nossos dias, afirmando que “património é tudo o que faz parte da memória colectiva, independentemente da sua idade, inclusivamente o que está a ser feito agora”. Ou seja, do património mais antigo até ao modernismo, com destaque para a obra de arquitectos como o modernista Cham Kuan Pui ou Raul Furão Ramalho Costa, que percebeu como ninguém o clima e a atmosfera de Macau, Manuel Vicente Bravo, Bruno Soares ou Adalberto Tenreiro.

Viagem pelo tempo

Um discurso que foi uma espécie de viagem pelo tempo, onde Marreiros enquadrou alguns dos seus trabalhos, dos mais pequenos aos de maior envergadura como o do Estádio de Ténis em Coloane. Como não podia deixar de ser, falou ainda do exercício de fazer arquitectura, referindo que “um arquitecto não pode limitar-se a ser competente ou apenas um agente de construção. Tem que ser inovador, adiantar-se ao seu tempo, não se prender ao gosto instituído”. Tem que ser criativo, inovador, ousado. Afinal, “a arquitectura serve para promover a felicidade”.
Marreiros, que na palestra chegou a interpretar John Lennon em “Imagine”, acredita que a globalização é inevitável, acredita na fraternidade universal e no direito à diferença. Todavia, crê, “a globalização só tem valor quando sabemos que o lugar onde vivemos tem alma”. Ao basear a sua obra numa dialéctica de procura e de pesquisa intercultural, Carlos Marreiros vai certamente deixar o seu nome escrito na RAEM. Ele sabe como ninguém pegar na tradição e refaze-la com contemporaneidade. Ele é o exemplo da arquitectura de autor que não se confina à ideia de edifício ou de casino, que não é obtusa nem cria prédios que sobem para cima de passeios.
As Palestras de Outono prosseguem até 25 de Novembro, com Jurgen Mayer, alemão de Berlim, Rene Tan, de Singapura, Mirko Zardini, director do Centro Canadiano para Arquitectura, Remo Riva, de Hong Kong, Laurie Hawkinson e Reinhold Martin, ambos da Universidade de Colômbia, Nova Iorque.
[POR JOSÉ MANUEL SIMÕES]

OUTRAS LIGAÇÕES AO MESMO TEMA:
• Traços e palavras da interculturalidade [JOSÉ MANUEL SIMõES in HOJE MACAU - 26 SET]
• Desafios arquitectónicos em Macau[SÉRGIO TERRA na TRIBUNA DE MACAU - 30 SET]
• Macau's heritage work praised in Hong Kong [ROBERT CARROLL in MACAU DAILY TIMES - 3 OUT]
• Carlos Marreiros' profile [MACAU DAILY TIMES - 3 OUT]

This is the expression of our disaster. It's still hard to tell. Could be like every vanished book would resemble the weight of an imaginary being that lost its own life. Do books die? They don't, but for sure they stop whispering. They stop being there, watching us and keeping us safe. It's painful to count them. To write their names on our list of casualties. I was there and I know it.
Bloom started slowly, with a few books. As we were selling them and sending them to other homes we were buying more. More and more. Until there wouldn't be more space. The exquisite space of Bloom Red was crowded with books, like a train on the rush hour. They squeezed themselves up and down. Shouting to each others. Telling their own stories. Puhskin's The Queen of Spades was always getting a voice on Dostoievsky's The Gambler. Or On the Road drifting some other tale to tell to Marguerite Duras' The Sailor from Gibraltar. On the Sea!
Fuck! It's hard to breathe now. They were all gone!
THIS EVENING WE LEFT THE LIGHT OF THE LOGO AT OUR DOOR ON. IT MEANS THAT WE'RE STILL THERE. WE STILL HAVE A LIGHT AT THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING ELSE! LIKE A CANDLE IT GIVES US HOPE...

And suddenly the dream is over. You wake up in a new reality and there's no other way as to face it just like it is. This was Bloom Red today morning, a place of disintegration. A ground zero on our own scale but in the same way unbelievable.
What is this? Where are we now? It took ages to get to this point, struggling from back and forth to bring books and a different life to this city and have them as our trueness. As our own veins, our flesh and blood. It was our passion from many months. It still is. Difficult to go by, as are books a difficult subject to make your own life subsist. Sometimes we failed, but it was on failure that we could open our doors. Learning.
From the back of the night the dawn brought us one meter water high inside our shop. We're it couldn't exist. Books don't burn and cannot swim. They have drown themselves on their own voices. Can you hear a story underwater? I guess not.
Who's to blame? Probably ourselves. Probably nobody. Where to go now? Even having faced it when we saw it we are still on that point when you wake up from the dream and see a world you haven't met before. It's the same, we know it, but the picture touched us much differently, goes directly to the heart, and we still couldn't print it out.
First we have to clean the mess, then we'll see. Bloom will not survive on its own. We'll need resources that it never had. We'll not give up. We'll go until the last station.
[MORE ON THE FLOOD]

Eu juro. Todos os poetas estão do nosso lado. Eu juro. E juro que, um dia, todos os políticos se transformarão em estrelas rock e que todas as fardas se confundirão com luzes de néon em cidades sem nome. E juro que, um dia, Marc Bolan ressuscitará por detrás de um écran gigante de vídeo. E que em todas as ruas se dançará ao som de Lou Reed. Take a walk on the wild side. E se, um dia, os fascistas no poder se transformarem em balas perdidas na multidão, nós saíremos à rua, nós seremos mais fortes, nada nos calará, nada nos derrubará. Eu juro.
João Peste, em "Juramento Sem Bandeira" (1987)

July 23rd - Wednesday - 18.00
The Master and Margarita - The Passion, Faust and Mikhail Bulgakov
A Talk by Peter Suart

The Russian writer and dramatist Mikhail Bulgakov died in Moscow in 1940. His masterwork novel. The Master and Margarita, first appeared in a Moscow journal in the 60's. It later went on to achieve cult status around the world.
In 2007 Peter Suart illustrated the book for The Folio Society in London, and it is from this work that this talk as sprung. Peter will show his illustrations for the book and discuss the following subjects:
• Bulgakov’s vision of Jesus as a non-divine seer;
• Faust, Science and the whirlpool of good and evil;
• The life and work of Bulgakov.

Peter will close with a look at the presence of some of these ideas in his own series of illustrated books, the Tik and Tok adventures, published by MCCM Creations.

PETER SUART, born in Jamaica, was raised in Hong Kong and schooled in England. In 1985 he returned to Hong Kong to work as an artist, musician, writer and theatrical performer. Since 1999 he has lived in England. He is a zealous sportsman.
[In English / Limited seating]

In collaboration with MCCM Creations • Supported by the British Council
Image frontispiece of the Folio Society's The Master and Margarita

July 26th - Saturday
The City as a Subject for Literary Expression
Talk + Creative Writing Session by Hong Kong writer Xu Xi
[15.00-17.00 Workshop / 18.00 Talk]

Focused on urban, congested life, Xu Xi, a Chinese-Indonesian native of Hong Kong, writes from within, zooming in on her own life in the city and its vanishing culture and sensibility. This surreal example of post-modernity transformed into a 21st Century Communist Chinese city informs her latest book, Evanescent Isles: From My City-Village, a collection of personal essays.

XU XI (pronounced “Shoe-See”), is one of Asia’s leading English language writers. Author of seven books of fiction & essays, and editor of three anthologies of Hong Kong literature in English. THE NEW YORK TIME named her a pioneer writer from Asia in English. Awards include an O. Henry prize story, shortlist for the inaugural MAN Asian Literary Award, Cohen Award from PLOUGHSHARES for best story, a NYFA fiction fellowship, the South China Morning Post story contest winner, among others. Her work is taught, broadcast and anthologized internationally. Her language is described as “uncluttered” and “arrestingly poignant.” She is, above all, uncompromising.
[APPLY NOW FOR THE CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP - LIMITED AVAILABILITY]

Co-organized by the Department of English of the University of Macau.
MORE INFO AT: www.xuxiwriter.com
PHOTO CREDIT: Peter Hilton

July 27th - Sunday - 20.00
The Box in Bloom

In 1987 Peter Suart and Kung Chi Shing formed THE BOX, a theatrical music ensemble, and the duo presented concerts and music theatre works alone and in collaboration with visual artists, choreographers, theatre folk and musicians in Hong Kong and Taiwan. For their 20th anniversary, they play Bluebeard at the Kwai Tsing Theatre in Hong Kong

First time in Macau together, Peter Suart and Kung Chi Shing, a classical music professor, will perform a selection of material from their twenty-year history; Suart on voice (sung and spoken), keyboard and percussion, and Kung Chi Shing on violin and flute. The music is dark, bizarre and lyrical.
Words in English.

Supported by the British Council
PHOTO from 2008 show: the box, side fourteen — bluebeard CREDIT: Liu Wai Tong

July 29th - 18.00
Mighty Tuesday #1
Nine Lives, The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in New China, by Karen Smith
Book Presentation with the Author / Updated Edition by Timezone 8 • Mar 2008

Nine Lives introduces nine artists and their personal histories and views on China today. Karen Smith‘s highly accessible introduction to an emerging art scene in a society unknown to most of us makes good reading not only for art-world insiders, but for anyone curious about recent history and its effect on the booming Chinese society.

In the early 1990s, the idea of contemporary art in China simply did not compute to a foreign audience. But in 1993, ten contemporary Chinese artists debuted at the 48th Venice Biennale. They were immediately hailed as progenitors of a Chinese „avant-garde." Their brightly colored, Pop Art-inspired paintings played with socialist motifs, parodied Mao, and gave a visual expression to the feelings of disaffected Chinese youth. They were everything western audiences expected of contemporary art from the People‘s Republic of China. But a number of critics were rather guarded in their opinions. The emergence of a market for their art transformed the lives of these avant-garde pioneers from rags to riches, from outcast to hero, from social pariah to cutting-edge cool in a Chinese society adapting to a new era. They did not change but China has changed. The ideology they once had to fight now propagates a cultural climate of laissez-faire that is tantamount to encouragement. Nine Lives paints a compelling picture of artists working beyond the pale of official culture, who started a new cultural revolution that is sweeping China today.

Karen Smith was born in Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. She graduated from Wimbledon Art School in Fine Art. In 1988, she moved to Asia curious to explore its practically unchartered art scene. She calls Beijing her home, where she lives since 1992, and is one of the foremost authorities on China’s contemporary art scene, both in China and abroad. Karen Smith also curates exhibitions, including The Real Thing, Tate Liverpool, 2007, and Chinese Photography and Video, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, amongst others. She is also on the advisory board of Three Shadows Photography Art Center in Beijing.

The author will show the works of Wang Guangyi, Geng Jianyi, Fang Lijun, Gu Dexin, Li Shan, Zhang Xiaogang, Xu Bing, Zhang Peili, and Wang Jianwei.

Timezone 8 Limited is a Hong Kong based publisher, distributor and retailer of books on contemporary art, architecture, photography and design.
In collaboration with Asia Publishers Service • HONG KONG

August 2nd - Saturday (time to be announced)
One Couple Two Cultures: 81 Western-Chinese Couples Talk about Love and Marriage • A presentation by the Author, Dan Waters
NEW POCKET SIZE EDITION BY MCCM CREATIONS

There are those who believe a Western-Chinese marriage is no different, say, to a blond marrying a red-head, although there are others who are more cautious and say that two sometimes antagonistic cultures inevitably add heat to the mix and an added dimension to marriage. There are also opposing views and beliefs having been raised on different codes of conduct and varying lifestyles. After marriage what sort of lifestyles do such couples lead? There can be compatibility and communication problems, not just with each other, but also with in-laws and partners' friends. What cuisines do they prefer? How do they raise their Eurasian children?
While a certain amount has been written about Blacks married to Whites, and Whites to Pakistani, and so on, next to nothing has been written about Westerners married to Chinese. Researched and written by Dr Dan Waters, who can claim approaching half a century of actual experience in such a marriage, is the best person to research the subject of mixed marriages.
One Couple Two Cultures is based on original research of eighty-one couples involving among others Chinese from the People's Republic of China and Caucasians of different nationalities. Examples included in this book are of both successful and not-so-successful unions.

Dan Waters was born in 1920 in Norwich, England, a city of pubs and churches. 'There's a pub for every day of the year and a church for every week'. He's now 88 year old and a whole life of experience. Dan and his Hong Kong Chinese wife, Vera Chan, were married on the Queen's Birthday in 1960, and they have lived together in Hong Kong ever since.

THE PUBLISHER
Since going into book publishing in 2001, the aspirations of MCCM Creations in books have not changed: a wish to bring to you original and inspiring books from creators who share a passion in books as well as having a strong desire to explore new concepts and visualise their experiences, stories and perception in their medium of preference - words, images, sound etc… who often take them across boundaries of illustration, visual art, design, architecture, photography, culture, socio-culture, and literature. Their titles have ‘crossover’ appeals to different age groups and interest groups. MCCM is owned by Mary Chan.
Event Co-Organized by MCCM Creations

August 3rd - Sunday - 18.00
China: Portrait of a Country A book launching presented by Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Liu Heung Shing

China: Portrait of a Country is a landmark on the history of publishing. Initially a book on photography it brings the whole history of a country from the past 60 years to a vivid and close-up form. After a research that took more than 4 years, Liu Heung Shing shows the work of 88 Chinese photographers who gave their perception along the extraordinary hardship that makes way to the humanistic course of this immense country. A document that will make its own life on the standards of gradual change and a monument on the passion of photography. When China opens the curtain at the summer Olympics in 2008 and the world’s focus falls upon Beijing, these images will serve to map out the remarkable road the Chinese have traveled to rejoin the rest of the world and the process by which China navigated the path from periphery to a central position in the world.

Liu Heung Shing’s journalistic involvement with China runs parallel with the development of the People’s Republic. Following the 1979 China-U.S. diplomatic normalization, Liu was Time Magazine’s first photojournalist based in Beijing. His first story was on the death of Mao Zedong. He has worked as a foreign correspondent for the The Associated Press in Beijing (1979-1983), Los Angeles (1983-85), New Delhi (19851-89), Seoul (1989-1990) and Moscow (1990-1993). Liu is the author of China After Mao (Penguin 1982), and USSR: Collapse of an Empire(Associated Press 1992). In 1992 he shared the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography on the coverage of the Soviet Union, and in 2005 French Photomagazine named Liu Heung Shing one of the 100 most influential figures in contemporary photography.

THE PUBLISHER
TASCHEN is an art book publisher founded in 1980 in Germany. Taschen has been a noteworthy force in making lesser-seen art available to mainstream bookstores. Bringing this art into broader public view, by publishing potentially controversial volumes alongside its more mainstream books of comics reprints, art photography, painting, design, fashion,advertising history, film, and architecture. TASCHEN's mission is to choose the most interesting, important, and pertinent subjects within a delectable range of disciplines, to make beautiful, unique and high-quality books.
Co-Organized by TASCHEN • Hong Kong

All the events will take place at Bloom Yellow and its boundaries at Albergue, previously know as The Old Ladies House, a complex for Arts and Creativity in Macau.
SUPPORTED by BAMBU SOCIEDADE DE ARTES LIMITADA
ALBERGUE - CALÇADA DA IGREJA DE SÃO LÁZARO, 8 - MACAU

Bloom * Creative Network is proud to announce the opening of Bloom Yellow, the new Bloom at St. Lazarus District.
To celebrate the opening, Bloom Encounters 2008 invites you for the presentation of Salman Rushdie's latest book, "The Enchantress of Florence", for which two distinguished teachers of UMAC and IIUM accepted Bloom's invitation to brighten the talks. Glenn Timmermans will be introducing the author and Tudor Vlădescu will be leading the presentation of the novel.
As it is Bloom Yellow's opening day, there will be a lucky draw of 3 books, to be attributed to 3 lucky attendees. Bring along your name card and drop it in the bowl as you arrive or simply fill in a card with your name and contact.
Bloom Yellow is located in the lovely Albergue, previous known as 'Old Ladies House', and will be a hub of beauty fool books and magazines that you may enjoy with a cup of coffee. Albergue hosts a lot of surprises, and it's a hidden paradise within the city as you can't get any other place. Come and see what's happening there.
Meanwhile, Bloom Red, the Bloom you all know, will continue blooming in the Hung Kung Temple Square.
See you there!
[DOWNLOAD THE POSTER HERE]

Edwin Nadason Thumboo (b. 1933) is one of Singapore's most distinguished poets. An Emeritus Professor (1997), he is currently Director of The Centre for the Arts, at the National University of Singapore where he was appointed Professor of English in January 1979, Head of the Department of English Language and Literature (1977-1993), the first Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (1980-1991) and Professorial Fellow (1995-2002).
At the University, he has taught Elizabethan/Jacobean Drama, the Romantic poets, Singapore and Malaysian Literatures, and Creative Writing Courses in addition to tutoring the other major areas of English studies. His research interests included The Modern Novel (Forster, Lawrence, Conrad) and the Novels of Empire (Kipling, etc.), Commonwealth Literature (Bessie Head, etc.), and Shakespeare (the Roman Plays). During his headship, the English Department introduced the study of Commonwealth/New Literatures in English. Another key development was the introduction of English Language as a major so that the department’s graduates could be better trained to undertake the teaching of English in the schools and junior colleges.
Professor Thumboo has contributed to the Singapore Arts scene chiefly in the area of literature. He has published four collections of poems: Rib of Earth (1956), (1977), Gods Can DieUlysses by the Merlion (1979) and A Third Map (1993); and two collections on nursery rhymes: Child's Delight 1 & 2 (1972), and is currently working on his next volume.
Apart from critical articles, he has also contributed forewords to the collections of young Singapore poets. He has edited various Singapore, regional and international anthologies, and was the General Editor of the ASEAN anthologies, some of which include Seven Poets: Singapore/Malaysia, An Anthology (1973), The Second Tongue: An Anthology of Poetry from Malaysia and Singapore (1979), Anthology of ASEAN Literatures: The Poetry of Singapore (1985), and The Fiction of Singapore (1990). He is Consulting Editor for World Englishes and Editorial Consultant for Westerly; he is also a member of the Editorial Board of Solidarity.
The most extended discussion of his poetry is Ee Tiang Hong's Responsibility and Commitment: The Poetry of Edwin Thumboo (1997). Professor Thumboo has received various awards in a career spanning more than four decades, including the National Book Development Council of Singapore Book Award for Poetry in English (1978, 1980 and 1994), the Southeast Asia Write Award (1979), the Singapore Cultural Medallion (1980), the ASEAN Cultural and Communication Award in Literature (1987), the Public Service Star (BBM) and Bar in August 1981 and 1991 respectively.
In October 2002, he presented the Keynote Address at the Biennial meeting of the International Association of World Englishes, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he received the Raja Rao Award for his contributions to the literature of the Indian Diaspora.
Professor Thumboo has also held visiting professorships and fellowships at universities in the USA, UK and Australia. He was a Fullbright-Hayes Visiting Professor at the Pennsylvania State University (1979-1980); Chairman, Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, VII Triennium (July 1983-June 1986); Writer-in-Residence, Institute of Culture and Communication, Hawaii (July-August 1985); Ida Beam Professor, University of Iowa, Iowa City (September-December 1986); Member, International Advisory Panel, East-West Centre, Hawaii, USA (1987); Honorary Research Fellow, University College, University of London (1987); Member, Committee of Jurors, Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Oklahoma, USA (1988); Visiting Professor and Writer-in-Residence, University of Wollongong (May 1989); and Visiting Fellow at the Department of English, Australian Defence Force Academy (1993). In 1998, he was a CAS-Miller Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a guest speaker at the Sally Sage McAlpin Lecture 1998 at the Literary Criterion Centre in Dhvanyaloka, Mysore, India, the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1999, and at TESOL 2000 in Vancouver. More recently, he has presented papers at the Grahamstown WordFest 2001 in South Africa, the International Association of University Professors of English Jubilee Conference 2001 at Bamberg, and the 14th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of the New Literatures 2002 at the University of Erfurt, Germany.
[MORE AT: http://go.to/thumboo]

We were planning it for a while, the start of our new place in some other part of the city. It will get shape at St. Lazarus District, a new area targeted from the Government of Macau to be dedicated to Creativity. If you cross a line, it don't need to be straight, between St. Paul Ruins or the Mount Fortress and Tap Seac Square it's just in the middle.
For our first event we joined forces with the Department of English of the University of Macau who invited the acclaimed Singaporean poet Edwin Thumboo for a series of lectures in the university in Taipa, from whom arise the opportunity to have a different session in town. So it is. It's the first 2008 Bloom Encounter at Albergue, a new space dedicated to Creative Sustainability, where Bloom is germinating a new seed and assembling a lineup of periodic happenings.
We are honored to initiate this set of events with this collaboration from the University of Macau which is bringing to all of us such a distinguished author.
The event will happen this Wednesday, March 26 at 6.30 p.m.

We thank you all with most gratitude for your presence and for your dedicated support to Bloom.
[DOWNLOAD THE FILE HERE or CLICK ON THE IMAGE ON THE LEFT]