National Poetry Day with Mary Jean Chan

This year for National Poetry Day, our students were lucky enough to be joined virtually by award winning poet Mary Jean Chan.

Mary Jean Chan, who grew up in Hong Kong, was the winner of the Poetry Society Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2018, and her book Flèche won the 2019 Costa Book Award for Poetry. Her poetry often explores themes of identity, family and culture.

One particular poem of hers that regained attention over the national lockdown was Safe Space. This poem was written in 2017 in reflection of the SARS outbreak, however its particular focus on washing hands. This poem gained new perspective and relevance due to the developing worldwide situation in tackling Covid-19.

National Poetry Day at Queen Anne’s School began with a virtual whole school assembly, led by Head of English, Mrs Spellman, and our guest Mary Jean Chan.

The poet began by reading some selected poems from her book Flèche, which was shortlisted for many prizes and won the 2019 Costa Book Award for poetry. Mary Jean Chan read poems such as On Losing Face So the Body Comes Back, Wish, and The Importance of Tea.

Our students also had the opportunity to ask some of their own questions to Mary Jean Chan.

When asked about when and how she knew she wanted to be a poet, Mary Jean Chan revealed that she had always loved literature, and English was always her favourite subject at school. It wasn’t until she went to university in the US that she Victorian poetry, and Shakespeare, and also more contemporary feminist poets, particularly the work of Adrienne Rich. From there she began writing more and realised that writing poetry was something that she needed to do.

Interestingly, Mary Jean Chan does not write poetry in her native language of Cantonese. “English seems to be my creative language, my adopted language for expressing myself " she explained.

Like many others, our students had found particular interest in Mary Jean Chan’s poem Safe Space, and asked about the inspiration behind it, whether it was written explicitly about the SARS epidemic.

“Safe Space illustrates that sometimes poets don’t know exactly what their work is about” Mary Jean Chan explained. “Poets often say their poems are more intuitive than they are! At the time, the inspiration for Safe Space was that I do wash my hands a lot, and thinking now it probably does come from my experience of the SARS epidemic. My father is a doctor, so I was very aware of it. It was an innocent start to the poem but I realise now that there is a deeper meaning to it.”.

Over the national lockdown, Mary Jean Chan found it difficult to write new poetry, as much of her inspiration often comes from visiting museums and art galleries, and listening to other poets read their work. Instead, she spent a lot of time reading and learning from other artists and poets.

Finally, our students asked for the award-winning poet’s advice on writing poetry – a big question!

Mary Jean Chan advised the students to explore the poetry community and find some modern poets that really speak to them. She added that poetry readings, live events and classes are great ways to discover new poets and gain inspiration – once they are safely back up and running again of course.

She also advised that, even if you are an accomplished poet, you should always strive to keep learning and exploring new ways of writing. “One can get quite settled in one’s own writing style; if you’re too comfortable, you should question why” Mary Jean Chan explained. “Language should never be too complacent and easy, language should be surprising and unexpected. A good poem should really surprise you and have an effect on you – and maybe even really change your life!”

After assembly, our A Level English Literature students received an exclusive virtual seminar from Mary Jean Chan. Mary Jean Chan read some more of her poems, selected for the Sixth Form audience. She answered some more of our girls’ questions and gave them some useful advice on analysing unseen poetry, which will play a key part in their English Literature exams. She encouraged the A Level students not to look at a poem “as a puzzle, but rather a method of communicating feelings and emotions, almost like a letter to the reader.” The poet also encouraged our girls to analyse each line of a poem, rather than just the poem as a whole.

“The seminar was inspirational!” said U6 student Ella S. “Mary Jean Chan makes poetry come alive and it was a joy to hear her speak. I was lucky to have the opportunity to attend.”

“It was great to be able to hear a poet read their own work in the way they imagined it, and I found it especially interesting to learn about how the multicultural and multilingual environment around Mary Jean Chan influenced her poetry.” said Molly S (L6)

Gaia D (L6) said “I was really interested in hearing Mary Jean Chan’s process when writing her poetry. She definitely inspired me to read and write more poetry.”

“I thoroughly enjoyed the seminar from Mary Jean Chan on National Poetry Day. It was a great opportunity to hear Chan read some poems live and explain her thought process behind some of her work. She also gave us some valuable tips on how to approach unseen poetry. I especially enjoyed and felt I related in hearing Chan’s poems that detailed her experiences on being an ethnic minority. Her poem Speaking in Tongues resonated with me as it explained her situation surrounding speaking both her mother tongue, Chinese, and a foreign tongue, English, invading. The seminar was very much appreciated by all A Level English students, and it would be nice to perhaps have Mary Jean Chan come to the school once these unprecedented times cease.” said L6 student Sahiba J.

Our Lower School students are also taking part in National Poetry Day’s annual poetry competition. This year’s theme is ‘Vision’, and our students have been using the school library’s great resource of poetry books, including Mary Jean Chan’s Flèche, as inspiration. We are excited to read their poetry creations soon! We would also like to extend a big thank you to Mary Jean Chan for joining us virtually and inspiring our students on National Poetry Day.