Korean Poetry

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian-American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

With intelligence and wit, author Jonathan Clements blends documentary and storytelling styles to connect the past, present, and future of Japan, and in broad yet detailed strokes reveals a country of paradoxes: a modern nation steeped in ancient traditions; a democracy with an emperor as head of state; a famously safe society built on 108 volcanoes resting on the world's most active earthquake zone; a fast-paced urban and technologically advanced country whose land consists predominantly of mountains and forests.

From acclaimed poet Franny Choi comes a poetry collection for the ends of worlds—past, present, and future. Choi’s third book features poems about historical and impending apocalypses, alongside musings on our responsibilities to each other and visions for our collective survival.

Korea was one of the last countries in Asia to be visited by Westerners, and its borders have remained largely unchanged since it was unified in the seventh century. Though it is one of the world's oldest and most ethnically homogeneous states, Korea was not born in a vacuum. Geographically isolated, the country was heavily influenced by powerful China and was often used as a bridge to the mainland by Japan. Calling themselves as "a shrimp among whales", Koreans borrowed elements of government, culture, and religion, all the while fiercely fighting to maintain independence.

In sobering detail, The Korean War chronicles a US home front agitated by Joseph McCarthy, where absolutist conformity discouraged open inquiry and citizen dissent. Cumings incisively ties our current foreign policy back to Korea: an America with hundreds of permanent military bases abroad, a large standing army, and a permanent national security state at home, the ultimate result of a judicious and limited policy of containment evolving into an ongoing and seemingly endless global crusade.

The Korean Soul: A Collection of Poems by H. C. Kim explores themes and ideas that are of importance to Koreans around the world, such as the current stand-off between South Korea and North Korea. By hearing H. C. Kim's poems, the listener will be able to see through the soul of Koreans. These poems are powerful testimonies to collective experiences of a people who boast 5,000+ years of history.

The Korean Spirit: Poems is a collection of poems that captures the hopes and the fears of ethnic Koreans around the world. Korean anxiety, heightened by the inclusion of North Korea as an axis of evil power impeding the Korean aspiration for a united Korea, has created a search for harmony among Korean individuals and Korean groups. Many of the poems in this collection express the collectively, although often privately, shared sentiment of the Korean people regarding global politics and international relations.

Language and lore are at the core of The Symmetry of Fish, a moving debut about coming-of-age in the middle of nowhere. With striking and tender insight, it seeks to give voice to those who have been denied their stories, and examines the way phrases and narratives are passed down through immigrant families—not diluted over time, but distilled into potency over generations.

Rev. Manwoo A. Kim started writing poetry during his college days at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. Reading this volume containing Rev. Kim's poems (translated from Korean by Onyoo Elizabeth Kim, Esq.), the reader will benefit from his many years of viewing the world through poetic lenses. Rev. Kim's poems reflecting on the grace of God inspire the reader to higher things, and his poems focusing on the suffering of Jesus Christ for His people will move the readers to tears.