Calvin Poon Yuen-leung (born 8 November 1958) is a Hong Kong lyricist, screenwriter and film director, football commentator, calligrapher and television host, known as the wandering lyricist. Born in Mong Kok and raised above a family-run cafe, he studied journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and graduated in 1981, having worked as a volunteer at Commercial Radio and then as a translator in the news division of Television Broadcasts. In 1981 he moved to Rediffusion as an assistant director, working on serials under Lee Yuen-fo, and in 1983 he joined Radio Television Hong Kong's drama unit, where his first published lyric became the theme of a television drama, composed by Lai Siu-tin and sung by Annabelle Lui. He became a screenwriter at Cinema City in 1984 and moved to D & B Films in 1986, making his directorial debut with the romance A Season of Love, starring Anthony Wong and Loletta Lee. From the 1980s he wrote for singers including Alan Tam, Jacky Cheung, George Lam, Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung; his songs include Love Trap, Who Is the Most Loved and Who Understands a Wanderer's Heart, and in 1989 Thanks for Love won him the Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs award for best Chinese pop lyric. He published a collection of his lyrics, Drunk Life Dream, in 1990 and contributed to the musical Snow Wolf Lake. From the 1990s he commentated on football for Cable Television, becoming known for his passion. In 2015 he wrote all the lyrics for Eason Chan's Cantonese album Getting Ready under the pen name Yuen Leung-bun, and a concert of his songs was staged at the Hong Kong Coliseum. He received the CASH Music Achievement Award in 2019. In 2016 he held a joint exhibition of his calligraphy, Light Source 50, with the artist Yau Wing-kwong. He moved to Taiwan in 2020 and founded a publishing house there in 2026.
Poon's plain-spoken lyrics were part of the golden age of Cantonese pop, and his willingness to move between songwriting, film and sports broadcasting made him an unusually versatile figure in Hong Kong's cultural life.
Achievements
- 1985 · Wrote Love Trap for Alan Tam, a Cantopop classic
- 1989 · Won the Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs award for best Chinese pop lyric for Thanks for Love
- 2015 · Under the pen name Yuen Leung-bun wrote all the lyrics for Eason Chan's album Getting Ready
- 2019 · Received the CASH Music Achievement Award from the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong