About Sean Wai Keung
Sean Wai Keung is a Glasgow-based poetry, performance and food maker.
His work often uses food as a starting point for explorations of identity and migration.
His first full length poetry collection, 'sikfan glaschu', was published by Verve Poetry Press in April 2021. You'll find full credits on Sean's website.
Photo © Angela Legg.
Sean's comments
'I approached writing about 2020 like I would a recipe. First I thought of the finished dish, the tastes and emotions I had been left with after the year. Then I worked back and pinpointed specific ingredients, events or occurrences. The year had been a point of suffering in terms of sudden, enforced shifts in routine and life, but it had also provided opportunities to do other things normally deemed "unimportant": self-reflection, rest, emotional processing, etc. — so I wanted to encapsulate a wide range of positives and negatives, both from my own perspective, and other friends I connected with.'
Sean Wai Keung's commission (PDF)
(66 KB; 4 pages)
Nadine Aisha Jassat's comments
Poet, writer and creative practitioner Nadine Aisha Jassat led the Fresh Ink initiative. She writes about Sean's commission:
'It always amazes me when cooking that you can bring together very different ingredients, and yet create something amazing and unique out of their combination. Sean Wai Keung’s 'The Recipe' felt very much like that: Sean blending together food writing, poetry, reflections on the pandemic, Brexit, family history and more, into a piece which feels stylistically unique and deeply engaging and satisfying. It is a piece I return to again and again, and with every reading it offers something more.'