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Dr Antony Huen

PhD, University of York; MA, University of Birmingham; BA, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Contact Information

Phone
3917-7274
Email
antonyh@hku.hk

Profile

Antony Huen specialises in contemporary poetry. He has a particular interest in poets’ diverse engagements with the visual arts, including ekphrasis, biographical studies, uses of digital technologies, and collaborations with visual artists. Dr Huen obtained his PhD in English from the University of York, with a focus on contemporary British poetry. He holds a BA in English from CUHK and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Birmingham.

Dr Huen is an award-winning critic and poet. He won the inaugural Essay Prize of Wasafiri: International Contemporary Writing and was shortlisted for the inaugural Poetry London Pamphlet Prize. He also received the Award for Young Artist (Arts Criticism) at the 19th Hong Kong Arts Development Awards, organised by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC). His work appears in leading journals such as New Writing, Poetry London, PN Review, andWasafiri, and international edited collections such as Hong Kong Studies (Brill), State of Play (Out-Spoken), and Where Else (Verve Poetry).

Before joining HKU, he lectured at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), and Hong Kong Metropolitan University (HKMU). At HKU, he is the Director of the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in the field of Creative Writing in English and the Editor of the student journal Black Box Magazine, a Hong Kong arts, culture, and literary review. He also curates the Black Box Writers’ Series, collaborating with international and locally rooted writers through conversations, workshops, and performances, including events co-presented with the Hong Kong International Literary Festival (HKILF).

Alumni Magazine interview

Personal webpage

research expertise

  • Hong Kong poetry

  • Contemporary British poetry

  • Transculturalism and transnationalism

  • The intersection of poetry and the visual arts

  • Creative writing in higher education

Publications

journals articles

Walker, Amelia, Bronwyn Lovell, Stef Rozitis, Anne Caldwell, Victoria Zoe Callus, Paul Collis, Robert Crocker, Dan Disney, Jesse Hill, Antony Huen, Evan Jarrett, Wanda O’Connor, Georgia Rose Phillips, Elvire Roberts, Lilian Roberts, Ali Sharman, Devin Tupper, and Carina Böhm. "Ecopoetic Encounters: Unsettling Anthropocentric Assumptions via Constraint-Based Anthologethnography." New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing, vol. 22, no. 1, Jan. 2025, pp. 135-152. Taylor & Francis, doi:10.1080/14790726.2024.2427241.

Huen, Antony, and Felix Chow. “Cosmopolitan Hybridity, Cultural Memory and Curation in Hong Kong Poetry.” Writing Chinese: A Journal of Contemporary Sinophone Literature, vol. 2, no. 1, Dec. 2023, pp. 34-65. White Rose University Press, doi:10.22599/wcj.43.  

Huen, Antony. “Transculturalism, Transformation and the Visual Arts in Contemporary British Women’s Poetry.” Women: A Cultural Review, vol. 33, no. 4, Mar. 2023, pp. 414-431. Taylor & Francis, doi:10.1080/09574042.2023.2183623. [Women Poetry Prize] 

Huen, Antony. “Hong Kong Moment: A Diasporic Poetics within the British Poetics.” PN Review, vol. 49, no. 3, Jan.–Feb. 2023, pp. 59-63. ProQuest, https://proquest.com/scholarly-journals/hong-kong-moment-diasporic-poetics-within-british/docview/2781734550/se-2.  

Huen, Antony. “Chinese and City Aesthetics: A Conversation with Jennifer Wong.” World Literature Today, vol. 96, no. 3, May–June 2022, pp. 49-53. Project Muse, doi:10.1353/wlt.2022.0121. 

Huen, Antony. “The ‘old Hong Kong’ and ‘a gold-sifting bird’: Hong Kong and Chinese Ekphrasis in Contemporary British Poetry.” Wasafiri: International Contemporary Writing, vol. 37, no. 1, Mar. 2022, pp.14-22. Taylor & Francis, doi:10.1080/02690055.2022.1999653. [Wasafiri Essay Prize] 

Huen, Antony. “Photographs, Photography and the Photographer: A Conversation with George Szirtes.” Wasafiri: International Contemporary Writing, vol. 34, no. 3, Sept. 2019, pp.59-63. Taylor & Francis, doi:10.1080/02690055.2019.1613016. 

Huen, Antony. “Tamar Yoseloff as Ekphrasist, and Her Hidden Sweetheart.” Humanities, vol. 8, no. 2., June 2019, p. 77. MDPI, doi:10.3390/h8020077. 

Huen, Antony. “Questions of the PhD.” Hong Kong Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, Sept. 2018, pp. 179-183. The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, https://hks.ojhhk.com/EN/Y2018/V1/I2/179.

 
BOOK CHAPTERS 

Huen, Antony, and Jason Eng Hun Lee. “Institutional and Communal Creativity: Local Discourse and English-Language Creative Writing in Hong Kong.” In Magdalen Ki and Wayne Liang (Eds.), Hong Kong Studies: The Culture and Politics of Realignment, pp. 258-281. Leiden: Brill, Oct. 2025, doi: 10.1163/9789004728608_012.

Quah, Helen, and Antony Huen. “Common Ground.” In Eddie Tay and Jennifer Wong (Eds.), State of Play: Poets of East and Southeast Asian Heritage in Conversation, pp. 65-81. London: Out-Spoken, Oct. 2023. 

Huen, Antony. “Texts for Teaching Poetry Writing for Language Learning.” In Graeme Harper (Ed.), Exploring Creative Writing, pp. 133-146. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, May 2016.  

 

REVIEWS  

Havolli, Dan, Antony Huen, and Sarah Pyke. Review of Teaching Literature in the Real World: A Practical Guide by Patrick Collier. English: Journal of the English Association, vol. 71, no. 273, July 2022, pp. 175-187. Oxford Journals, doi:10.1093/english/efac014.  

Huen, Antony. Review of Painting Words: Aesthetics and the Relationship between Image and Text (edited by Beatriz González-Moreno and Fernando González-Moreno). Early Popular Visual Culture, vol. 20, no. 1, Nov 2021, pp. 85-87. Taylor & Francis, doi: 10.1080/17460654.2021.2001735.  

Huen, Antony. Review of As Slow as Possible by Kit Fan and Letters Home by Jennifer Wong. Hong Kong Review of Books, Aug. 2020, https://hkrbooks.com/2020/08/10/as-slow-as-possible-and-letters-home. 

Huen, Antony. Review of Mama Amazonica by Pascale Petit, Joy by Sasha Dugdale and Shrines of Upper Austria by Phoebe Power. The Compass Magazine, no. 7, Mar. 2019. 

Huen, Antony. Review of Cain by Luke Kennard. Eborakon, vol. 1, no. 3, Jan. 2017, pp. 42-44. 

Huen, Antony. Review of Steep Tea by Jee Leong Koh and The Ground I Stand on Is Not My Ground by Collier Nogues. Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, no. 29, Sept. 2015, https://asiancha.com/content/view/2195/515. 

 

OTHER ARTICLES 

“As the UK Discusses an EU return, Hong Kong Offers Lessons.” South China Morning Post, July 2026, https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3360564/uk-discusses-eu-return-hong-kong-offers-lessons.

“Editing a Surface: A Conversation with Nicholas Wong.” Black Box Magazine, May 2026, pp. 42-45.

“Cantonese Songs of Experience: Cantopop and the Western Canon.” Hong Kong Review of Books, Sept. 2021, https://hkrbooks.com/2021/09/29/hkrb-cantonese-songs-of-experience.  

“A Defence of Ekphrasis.” New Defences of Poetry, July 2021, http://nclacommunity.org/newdefences.

“Odes to Touch.” The Oxonian Review, no. 44, Aug. 2020, https://oxonianreview.com/articles/odes-to-touch. 

“Reflections on Poetry as Portraiture: Maryknoll Convent School.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Nov. 2018, https://chajournal.blog/2018/11/07/maryknoll-convent-school.  

 

EDITORIAL FOREWORDS  

“Hong Kong on the Margin.” Black Box Magazine, May 2026, pp. 6-7.

“Black Box, Becoming, and Hong Kong.” Black Box Magazine, May 2025, p. 6.

 

CREATIVE WORK  

“Spheres of Influence.” Poetry London, no. 114, Summer 2026, p. 49.

Four Poems. The Hong Konger, Feb. 2025, https://hongkonger.world/2025/02/14/four-poems-by-antony-huen.

“NICAM.” Fleurs des Lettres, no. 110, July–Aug. 2024, p. 99.

“Chinese Blackbirds.” Ecopoetic Encounters: Manipulating Linguistic Voice to Unsettle Anthropocentric Assumptions, Mar. 2024, p. 24. doi:10.25954/43hp-tk10.  

“The Whale.” Voice & Verse, no. 75, Dec. 2023, p. 65.  

“Amor.” In Orpheus Dreams of Eurydice: Meandering Cognitions, edited by Joost de Jonge, p. 122. The City Museum of Rijeka, Sept. 2023. 

“Jumbo Kingdom.” The Oxonian Review, Aug. 2023, https://oxonianreview.com/articles/jumbo-kingdom.  

“Bauhinia Blakeana.” In Where Else: An International Hong Kong Poetry, edited by Jennifer Wong, Jason Eng Hun Lee, Tim Tim Cheng, p. 44. Verve Poetry Press, May 2023.  

“A Personal History of Hong Kong as 39 Everyday Objects.” In A Personal History of Home, edited by Jennifer Wong, pp. 82-83. The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, Jan. 2023, https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/personal-history-home.

Four Poems. PN Review, no. 268, Nov. 2022, p. 49. 

“Icarus.” In Painted Poetry & Painterly Poetics, Aug. 2022, http://paintedpoetry.org/water-on-water/index.html#040-250. 

“Horse Head.” Visual Verse, vol. 9, no. 2, Dec. 2021, https://visualverse.org/submissions/horse-head-huen. 

“Brain Sea.” Poetry Wales, vol. 57, no. 2, Dec. 2021, p. 61.  

Three Poems. In Voice & Verse 21/ 21 Anthology: Poetry from Hong Kong, edited by Chris Song & Tammy Lai-Ming Ho, pp. B47-B49. Musical Stone, Dec. 2021.  

“Self-Portrait as a Steamed Whole Fish.” The Dark Horse, no. 43, Jul. 2021, p.61. 

“Chinese Horoscopes.” harana poetry, Mar. 2021, https://haranapoetry.com/chinese-horoscopes-by-antony-huen. 

“Neighbours.” In Listen to the World 2020: Neighbours, edited by Emilie Lauren Jones, p. 38. Positive Images, Feb. 2021.  

Two Poems. In HK-SG Digital Travel Bubble. Poetry.sg, Feb. 2021, https://poetry.sg/travelbubble-3. 

“Cantonese Proverbs.” amberflora, Jan. 2021, https://amberflora.com/issues/issue-10/antony-huen-cantonese-proverbs. 

“Myo-pic.” Ink, Sweat and Tears, Oct. 2020, https://inksweatandtears.co.uk/day-five-of-vision-for-npd-jack-grady-lydia-kennaway-antony-huen. 

“In the Banyan Forest.” In Mingled Voices 3, edited by Gillian Bickley & Verner Bickley, p. 61. Proverse, Apr. 2019. 

“Notes.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, no. 42, Feb. 2019, https://asiancha.com/wp/article/antony-huen. 

“Peach.” Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, vol. 17, no. 4, Oct. 2018, qlrs.com/poem.asp?id=1445. 

“Remembering Hong Kong as 39 Everyday Objects.” Voice & Verse, no. 39-40, Mar. 2018, p. A66. (First published in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, no. 33, Sept. 2016, https://www.asiancha.com/content/view/2462/565)

“Felt Suit.” The Ekphrastic Review, Dec. 2017, https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/felt-suit-by-antony-huen. 

“Missing Her (Fanling Babies Home).” The Shanghai Literary Review, no. 1, Jun. 2017, p. 113.  

“The Houses.” In The Best New British and Irish Poets 2017, edited by Todd Swift, pp. 63-65. Eyewear, Mar. 2017.  

“Imagine I Go to a Pub.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, no. 32, Jun. 2016, https://asiancha.com/content/view/2402/550.  

“Son to Father.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, no. 25, Oct. 2014, https://asiancha.com/content/view/1899/473. 

 

MEDIA FEATURES  

“A Crisis in the Arts.” Dialogue with Luke Kennard at the Hong Kong Book Fair (with the support of British Council Hong Kong), July 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhDrHjFCSUg.

Interview with the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC), July 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ytUPMphWhw.

“A Museum of the Mundane.” Interview on the Hong Kong Lit Club Podcast, episode 4, June 2025, https://open.spotify.com/episode/3sXEeq2QOIMtiKHtzWC95L?si=J3cLXquWTJ2tQ9QoujF6uQ.