Translating Mo'um

Poetry. Asian American Studies. "Deft, edgy, dystopic, assiduous in their loathing of the famous fascination of the exotic, Cathy Park Hong's poems burst forth in searing flashes of ire and insight. She gives no quarter to either Korean or English. Without creative interference, without mistranslation, language to her is history's 'cracked' thorax, a resented 'dictation, ' and a constant personal embarrassment. Her poems are 'islands without flags, ' 'the ocean a slate gray/ along the wolf-hued sand.' Translating Mo'um is striking both for its stabbingly original, vinegary images and its ruthless honesty: Hong being that rare thing, a poet as rigorous in her self-scrutiny as in her cultural confrontations" —Calvin Bedien