AN EMPTY HOUSE: KOREAN AMERICAN POETRY
Edited by Yearn Hong Choi
Homa & Sekey Books, $14.95, 133 pages
REVIEWED BY J. GLENN EVANS
With its eye-catching cover, An Empty House:Korean American Poetry is a beautiful book. And a random perusal gives the reader the immediate feel that the poems in this 133-page collection are for all of us.
The poems by 12 Korean American poets are very accessible to an American audience and especially to the modern ear. The language of these poets is direct and simple and their poems are typically short. There is a sensitivity expressed in these poems of exile that speaks to the love of family and home, and love of nature — themes that appeal to all of us.
The memory of the homeland and the yearning for those connections to family are strong elements throughout this collection. The family is present in many of these poems as in “Father” by Chong Cha Lee. The memory of the comfort and love between father and child is awakened in the lines:
“After listening to the dull adult talks, / I fell asleep on my father’s lap.”
Yearn Choi’s poem “From the Idaho Potato Field” evokes a special tenderness for all our grandmothers:
“Grandmother, who harvested potatoes in July, came from her country house / To my city house with a bushel of her first-harvested potatoes on her head / Along the 10 miles of new unpaved highway / All scarless potatoes that escaped the hoe were for me, / Her grandson who loved potato-eating.
“Looking over the green field with small white flowers, / I saw my grandma, walking from Oesachon to Chongup / With a bushel of potatoes on her head …”
And again in Yearn Choi’s poem, “An Empty House,” the images are so vivid and the memories so heart wrenching, I must ask “Is the house still empty?” Yearn’s poem “Prayer in the Summer Woods” is a prayer for Gaia, and for us, too, because we are a part of its nature.
His poem “Retiree’s Last Words” has a kind of uneasiness mixed with resignation, feelings that we all can relate to when faced with a career change or retirement. And we love the connection back through the ages to Li Po, the 8th century Chinese poet in his poem “To Koh Choong-suk.”
Current events enter into the moving lines of a number of these poems. The poets shared their anguish and grief at the loss of life at the Virginia Tech massacre — the grief expressed at the losses suffered by the families of the victims and their anguish that the perpetrator was Korean. There also is sadness for what war and occupation do to a people and the desire to see Korea be a whole nation again.
The sorrow and pain suffered by families with daughters assaulted and killed by our armies of occupation, as in “Candlelight Demonstration” by Chun U Yi is a matter of grave concern for Americans and for our policy-makers.
These poets, too, are very aware of the social problems faced by many in our society: The homelessness of the Vietnam veteran on the side of the road unnoticed or ignored by passing motorists by Haeng Ja Kim in “The Homeless,” or the nameless woman “Who froze to death at a bus terminal / Last night …” in “Wailing” by Anne Park. Considering the current crises in families facing foreclosure, we can appreciate the wistful humor in “Mortgage Payments” by Yung Whi Chung.
Or the acute numbness of loss suffered by the man in “Elderly Couple” by Sook Young Lim. Or the terrible anguish and hardships suffered by the family in “The Immigrants” by Chun U Yi.
That these poets share an awareness of the small things we encounter in our daily lives is exemplified in “A Stream of Light.” In this small poem by Yung Whi Chung, a smoke detector is given real meaning:
“One day when this light turns into a sound of alarm / Waking me up, / Leaving behind my soul, / My body would dash / Towards the outside / As if / It had lived just for that moment.”
And in “I Want to Be a Tree” also by Yung Whi Chung, elements of nature are personified, a style that is seen in quite a number of other poems in this collection. In the poem “In the Forest” by Sook Young Lim, there is a tree standing on one foot after giving away a branch to pouring rain.
In “A Spring Rain” by Soon Paik, this handling of elements in nature gives the trees and flowers a palpable presence not often realized by writers:
“A spring rain knocks against a ceiling glass” and “A weeping cherry in the front yard / Sprouts a new bud, / Reporting the beginning of a new life; …”
The dandelions in Monica Sohn’s poem, usually treated as weeds, take on a very different meaning when they are happy to be together with the weeds, as an expression of democracy. Looking out the car window this spring and seeing dandelions in profusion, Monica’s lines came immediately to mind.
In “Daffodil” by Anne Park:
“The cries followed, going between the steps. / As if saddened by the premature cut stems being sold, / Even the light green stems looked up to the blossoms, / Seeming to whimper.”
In these lines from “Sunflower” by Se Woong Ro, there is an acceptance of what nature gives us:
“I planted sunflower seeds again, / But the result was the same: they were dwarf-size. /
I did not know the dwarf sunflower before.
“The sunflowers in my backyard know my background / Of being an immigrant from Korea: they like to be my companion of my height. / I came to know their valuable message: / You should know yourself!”
And again in “A Neighbor” by Chun U Yi:
“The dandelion and clover don’t respect the fence, / Which separates us from the neighbor, / They secretly invade our territory / Without declaration of war …”
As so much of American culture rushes headlong over the precipice, I found the celebration by these poets with the beautiful things so refreshing, as in the awareness that what the dawn brings is so vivid and palpable to the senses in “A Day of Awakening” by Haeng Ja Kim:
“The sun rises. / With the day’s portion of hope on its head, …”
And the way in which the season and the self merge into light and time in “Winter, the River of Dawn” by Yang Ja Park is deeply moving to any reader who ponders life. The joy of observing nature is given a light touch in “A Pocketful of Spring Rain” by Chong Cha Lee.
“Look at them— / Unable to close their beaks in utter happiness / To all the grubs within the swollen earth! / To all the new leaves! / Heeding impatience, / The birds whisper and chatter / Beak to beak / With their bodies leaning close “”
There are periods of quietness in some of these poems that create the spiritual. The poems compel us, as poetry should, to ’stop and listen.’ A number of these poems are meditations on the pleasures of getting by from day to day, by observing those small things around us or the small things that we can do each day for ourselves and for others that give solace.
In “In the Autumn” Insuk Kang asks us to stop and listen, go out into the forest and retrieve our memories from the fallen leaves. When we can reconnect to nature, we replenish our spirit.
J. Glenn Evans is poetry editor of PoetsWest.
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