I AM KOREAN AMERICAN

Own Words

Amongst wine and Parliaments in writerly circles, I often hear a nervous complaint. “What of us, who remain poor, overlooked and hanging on the fringes of society?”

It took quite some time (and courage) to say: poetry is a privilege. It is the one vocation that does not work under the pretense of money. There are few things in life so blessed and conscience-free. I speak for business and enterprise that seem to deaden the individual spirit, leaving one ever so passive. Poets have a moral responsibility. I strive for poetry because I choose to follow a different measure of life. How could I ask for anything in return?

Having chosen such a vocation, there are pains I must embrace. First) I will let people down, particularly those closest to me from my adhering to isolation and financial dissolution. Second) I will not make a difference in this world. This is one of the revelations that I have resisted the most. I am but one woman. I contain no power to move those around me and never will try to. My very best involves finding change in myself and Beauty in its richest form—in nature and the human heart.

FRUI
(previously appeared in Qarrtsiluni and New Forum Journal)

Mom always loved the rain. She loved the sharp edges of the stones
washed with it. Because she liked things clean.

It cleans every alley, she said.
God must like things clean. She was sure of this

more than the broken zippers
and the washed take-out boxes she saved in the pantry.

She loved to bleed.
I hope she finally sensed God’s cleaning in it.

Bio:
BA in English Literature and Poetry Emphasis from University of California, Irvine. Personal tutor in Seoul, Korea and a translator assistant in Tokyo, Japan 05-06, 06-07. Award-winning SAUCI Times Editor-in-Chief 08-09. International Center for Writing and Translation Assistant 08-09. 11th Grade Comparative Literature Teacher for Humanities Out There in Santa Ana 08-09. Currently a freelancer for The Orange County Register newspaper based in Santa Ana. Fluent in Korean, Japanese, and conversational French. My work has previously appeared in The Susquehanna Review, Juked, and my poem “Antti Revonsuo” will appear in Northwestern’s Triquarterly of Summer/Fall 2011.

Website: http://www.angelaejkoh.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Angela_Koh