Poetry assignment- "most political form of art": Suji Kwock Kim

Suji Kwock Kim is a Korean American poet and was born in Milton, New York in 1969. She attended Yale University where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1995 and received her master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Iowa’s writing program in 1997. Kim was also educated at Seoul National University and Yonsei University as a Fullbright Scholar, and at Stanford University as a Wallace Stegner Fellow. When she was twenty-one years old, she began writing poetry after she attended a poetry writing workshop in college. She was motivated to write poetry because she was intrigued by its structure. The rhythm and music of inspires her and she loves to write poetry even though it may seem tough at times because she has a hard time containing all her intense feelings and emotions. She wanted to write about her Korean heritage, which is very important to her so she writes many poems based on aspects of Korean culture. Kim explains her roots online and not in her poems. In her poems she talks from her ancestor’s perspective and point of view.

I decided to choose Suji Kwock Kim and her poetry book “Notes from the Divided Country” for three main reasons. First of all, I wanted to choose an Asian American poet of who was not of Chinese descent. Being a Chinese American, I know Chinese culture very well with all of its aspects, traditions, values, etc. I wanted to learn about a different Asian American culture because I felt like I needed some change in my learning of Asian American culture. Seeing the perspectives of other Asian American cultures is important in order for me to understand what the big picture of Asian American culture is about. Secondly, I wanted to hear a woman’s voice instead of a man’s voice. No offence to men or anything but men have dominated and had advantage over women in the freedom of expression through poetry and other forms of art. We have seen throughout history that women were forbidden to express themselves in any way. When women were eventually allowed the freedom of expression, they poured their hearts and soul into their writing. The beauty in the poems is something that I wanted to read and be able to relate to because I am of the same gender as them. Third, I read the summary for the poetry book “Notes from the Divided Country” and I was interested in the plot and poetry presented in the poetry book. I knew that if I used this poetry book for class I would not be bored and that I would learn a lot about Korean culture.

The three poems that I chose to use for the poetry unit of this class are “Flight,” “Nocturne,” and “The Korean Community Garden in Queens” from the poetry book Notes from the Divided Country. These poems have themes and certain messages that the author wants the reader to know from reading the poems. In “Flight,” the author wants the reader to recognize the severity of the experience of the journey from a native country to America and realize how dreadful and emotionally painstaking the journey is for all immigrants. The major themes from this poem are oppression, fear, and helplessness because the scene is so sad and scary for those going to America. In “Nocturne,” the author advises the reader to spend as much time with his/her love as much as possible since time is short and there may be circumstances that occur that separate two lovers apart. The major themes from this poem are love and sadness because the lover is sad about wanting to see her love. In “The Korean Community Garden in Queens,” the author is telling the reader that through the tough obstacles and circumstances that occur during the journey to America, it is worth it at the end where the immigrants achieve the life that they longed for. The major themes from this poem are happiness and overcoming obstacles because the immigrants overcame several obstacles to achieve happiness in the end. All three poems connect in the way that they each take part in describing the journey from the native country to America and emphasize the feelings and emotions that go into it. “Flight” talks about the journey at the beginning, “Nocturne” talks about reminiscing love as the journey goes on, and “The Korean Community Garden in Queens” talks about end of the journey of happiness and success. At the beginning of the journey, it seems scary at sad at first and throughout the journey a person often thinks of family members and those who they care about. However, upon arriving in America, immigrants are happy that they finally made it and are able to start a new life.

My creative response is taking the line “Light a lighthouse over these broken spars” from the poem “Nocturne” and writing a poem based on that line. Here’s what I came up with:


A Burning Flame at the Beach

Waves tumbling, crashing into millions of glass shards,
Winds whistling the notes of a flute, as
Clouds rumble and gather together, crying in agony.

Off in the distance a moldy, wooden ship bobbles up and down
Fighting against the evil forces of Mother Nature.
The ship stretches out its hand, ready to grasp the shore
When suddenly BOOM!
A thunder strike sent down from the heavens above
Cuts the hand and sends the ship blundering viciously in circles
Until it is torn and breaks into smithereens
Upon smashing against the rocks near the shoreline.
The fragile pieces of wood and spars land helplessly on the shore of the sandy beach,
Wiped out from their treacherous adventure.
This incident occurs over and over again
For all of eternity.

Not far in the distance stands an abandoned lighthouse,
Perched upon a cliff of moist, eroded rock.
With broken windows and peeling paint,
The lighthouse faithfully sits and stares at the ocean,
Not knowing if its internal flame will ever burn again.
The debris of remains from ships who met their terrible fate,
Spars snapped into jigsaw pieces,
Makes up the gloomy environment that the lighthouse lives in.

This night however, an old man with a shaggy beard appears out of the nighttime fog,
Gruffly walks into the lighthouse, and
Climbs the spiraling stairway to the top.
He lights the Olympic torch and
Sets the night ablaze.
With the lighthouse burning bright and filled with joy,
It turns the whole entire world of sadness and misery upside down,
Shining a ray of hope to people close and afar, while
Overlooking the broken, remaining remnants of the awful past.

Joy Luck Club (The Movie)

I was looking through some old movies and came upon one of the oldest movies that I remembered watching as a little kid: “The Joy Luck Club.” Out of boredom I decided to watch the movie to pass the time. It had been a long time since I watched the movie so I only vaguely remembered parts of it. “The Joy Luck Club” is a film adaptation of the best-selling novel The Joy Luck Club by author Amy Tan. This novel tells the story of four young Chinese American women, Jing-Mei “June” Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair. They are growing up in San Francisco and they encounter numerous experiences that Chinese American women go through regarding their family and culture. Each person has a different story to tell about their history, experiences, and relationships, but all of them are connected to each other through the Joy Luck Club, a club where the families of these women come together to play the Chinese game of mahjong. This book is a bestseller and realistically portrays Chinese Americans in terms of the tough experiences that they go through and what the aspects of their culture and values are.

Wayne Wang was inspired by the book and decided to direct the film adaptation of the book. Ming-Na Wen plays Jing-Mei “June” Woo, Tamlyn Tomita plays Waverly Jong, Rosalind Chao plays Rose Hsu Jordan, and Lauren Tom plays Lena St. Clair.
In 1993, “The Joy Luck Club” hit theaters and the movie received both bad and good criticism. Numerous people talk about how the movie wrongly portrays Chinese Americans. They say that the movie is racially stereotypical of Chinese Americans because in the movie Chinese Americans are given the image to viewers as negative and inferior in terms of their culture, values, and beliefs. However, on the other hand, there are others who believe that the movie was really good. These people also thought that the novel The Joy Luck Club was remarkable and outstanding. They argue that “The Joy Luck Club” was a good portrayal on film of the book and of Chinese Americans. The film addressed the significant and important aspects of Chinese Americans that the author Amy Tan did in her novel.

After watching the movie, I believe that “The Joy Luck Club” was a good movie. I do not see the movie as something of racial stereotyping or something bad for Chinese Americans and Asian Americans. Those who believe that other racial and ethnical groups besides Asian Americans and Chinese Americans who think of them as inferior and put us down probably see this film as racial, stereotypical, or discriminatory, anything to make Asian Americans and Chinese Americans inferior to other races. Rather, I see that this movie will help promote awareness among viewers about Asian Americans, especially Chinese Americans and help educate those who do not know about Asian American culture or are interested and want to learn more. For those who do not have the time to devote themselves to finding out about Asian American culture through books and research on the Internet, “The Joy Luck Club” is a simple and easy way to get a very valuable and accurate glimpse of who Asian Americans and Chinese Americans are along with all its cultural aspects. Those who watch the movie will come away with lessons and information that they learn about Asian Americans and Chinese Americans. Since the book is already a big hit, the movie gets lots of viewers and ultimately the amount of people who are informed about Asian Americans and Chinese Americans from the story in The Joy Luck Club is huge. Hopefully the movie and the novel will continue to promote Asian American culture right now and in the future.

Reactions to AA poems

The three poems that I chose to use for the poetry unit of this class are “Flight,” “Nocturne,” and “The Korean Community Garden in Queens” from the poetry book Notes from the Divided Country by Suji Kwock Kim. Each of these poems is outstanding in its own special way and conveys a message that represents the author’s experience as a Korean American along the journey from Korea to America.

“Flight” talks about the author’s perception of the journey from Korea to America. The author talks about the moment of leaving Korea and describes the environment of the surrounding people and setting. A message is addressed to a future family member about the situation that is going on at the end of the poem. After I read this poem, I was immediately reminded of the similar journey that my parents took when they came to America. They underwent the same circumstances. My mom told me about the experiences that she went through and the aspects of the environment she lived in while she made the dangerous and frightening journey. She mentioned that she saw lots of sick people dying and the whole entire experience was somber for everyone onboard. Although she did not tell me more about her experience beyond these details, I could imagine that what she saw was so dreadful that she didn’t want to talk any more about it. The author paints a vivid portrait of the experience with descriptions like “Our son burned into a wing of smoke” and “A girl with her eyes blown away.” I felt sad for my parents and immigrants who come to America after reading this poem because they went through such harsh circumstances but I also appreciate how strong they were to be able pull through from their experience and not let it greatly affect them. I was surprised at the way the poem was presented on the page in the book. The poem is presented in a unique way where each short line of the poem alternates back and forth between the left and right sides of the page. The structure of the poem stands out because usually poems are presented as stanzas but here the poem takes on a different approach, and that makes the poem stand out.

“Nocturne” depicts a nighttime scene at the beach in order to dedicate the poem to someone that the author loves. The author describes the scenery of the beach with the waves, sand, wind, and sounds and yearns for her love through touching metaphors and descriptive, expressive phrases and words. After I read this poem, I could imagine the entire scene in my head where the author sits on the sand at the beach and looks off into the distance, thinking about her true love. It looks like the romantic scene in some movies where the girl is alone while her love is off somewhere in another location such as another country fighting a war. I felt sad after reading this poem because the author must be going through turmoil of emotion just to have her true love with her at the moment. She feels really lonely and needs someone to support and care for her. The descriptions of the beach also help portray the feelings and emotions that the reader has for her love. “In your shirt’s rustling, I hear sailcloth in the wind, ropes lashed and pulling against the mast” tells the reader that the author’s love can be compared to the aspects of the beach. “I cannot see what you see, but I will paint you a world in green, the color you most love” expresses the author’s feelings towards her love, saying that she will do anything for him to especially make him happy. The author gives the most vibrant descriptions to tell the readers what she wants them to know.

“The Korean Community Garden in Queens” concludes the author’s journey from Korea to America with a description of the garden she lives close to and mentioning the immigrants who come to America to seek a better life. The author gives the readers a sense of the aspects of the garden including the grass and the flowers and personifies them in order to relate them to the immigrants who come to America and have the drive to succeed and live more comfortably. At the end of the poem, the author concludes that those who come to America have finally achieved the life and dream that they sought for. After reading this poem, I thought about what my parents saw when they arrived in America. They were unfamiliar with the scenery and way of life that they were so scared. However, they dealt with the situation by slowly assimilating themselves into American society by getting jobs and learning English. Soon they knew how the system in America worked and eventually became experts at it. Also, unlike the other poems that I have read from this poetry book, this poem made me feel happy. The theme of the poem of a brighter future in relation to the beautiful scenery of the garden in Queens is something worth feeling good about. One of the numerous descriptions of the garden is “…syringes and dead weed-husks, tire-shreds and smashed beer bottles, the first green shoots of spring spike through-…” which gives a visual image of the garden. One of the main connections between the garden and humans (immigrants) is made in the line “All things lit by what they neighbor but are not, each tint flaring without a human soul, without human rage at its passing.”

Angry Little Girls! By Lela Lee

Lela Lee created the Angry Little Girls! as a little video in 1994 at UC Berkeley. She was a little afraid to show it to anyone, so after a couple years she got back into the idea and made a few more videos; making the “5 Angry Episodes”. Then, after the success of some t shirts, Lela made debuted her own website in 1998. She was able to go on many meetings to try to turn her video into a cartoon, but she no one accepted because “there’s just no market for Asians.”

This is what really sparked the idea of her site and comics, which is a place for people who don’t belong can fit in and be welcomed. Lela ended up creating a bunch more characters, Deborah, Wanda, Maria, Xyla, Pat, Patsy Pup, Percy Cat, and Chuy the Travelin' Chicken, who all add a different points of view and reactions to anger, as everyone else does.

Now Lela is happily creating more comics for her fans. Now, Lela “enjoys acting and lives happily in Los Angeles with her husband, baby boy and cat.” She is also happily creating more comics for her fans, and you can find her books in stores. (Keep an eye out for her fifth edition, out February 2009.)

I really think that all of her stuff is hilarious and relatable because I am Chinese and have experienced some of the things in her work. Some of her comics, bags, and t shirts all touch on stereotypes of Asian Americans. Like:

- English skills:
Bag Caption: Deborah: Wow, you speak English so well. Kim: I was born here you dumbass.
I think it’s so dumb when people assume things based on looks. I mean, has no one learned not to “judge a book by its cover”? Just because someone looks a certain way, like foreign, doesn’t mean they can’t speak English.

- Waste of Money:
bag caption: Kim: I got you a gift.
Mom: why you waste money!?!
Gotta love your mom's wisdom...

My mom acts the same way. Whenever I say I bought her something, she’ll say, “why? I don’t need anything; you should’ve just given me the money.” I guess lots of Asian parents are like that and feel that it’s a waste of money to buy unnecessary things.


- interracial dating/marriage … comic
Many Asian parents want their kids to marry another Asian person, and really look down upon interracial marriage. I was at an ASU meeting on campus a little while ago, and we got very in-depth about this topic. I was surprised how so many people’s parents are so restrictive on who their kids can and cannot date/marry. For example, one girl’s parents even took it a step further and said that she can only marry a Chinese or Korean boy, no one else. Even my one of my friends was talking to her mom about mixed children, one day and it ended the same way. Her mom said, “Yea, mixed babies are cute, but just marry a nice Chinese boy okay.”

- Laundry Stereotype:

Well, I really can’t prove otherwise since my family does own a drycleaner downtown, but it’s not right to assume that all Asians do laundry for a living. Just because that is what many of the Asian immigrants did, doesn't mean that is all we do. People need to look past this and see that anyone can do anything that they set their mind to do.
(and by the way this picture also comes on a T-shirt)

So, check out this site and see all of Lela’s cool items and comics.
http://www.angrylittlegirls.com/
You may be surprised that they don’t just make you laugh, they have deeper meanings. Don’t stereotype people, like Asians and Asian Americans, based on looks (or anything for that matter), and don’t believe all that you see or hear. If everyone stopped having prejudgments of others then we could all get a long a little better and be happier.

asian nerds vs. the cool asians

i was watching Mean Girls and that movie is very sterotypical and the part where they were mapping out the cafeteria, i saw how they divided the asian population into "asian nerds" and the "cool asians" .. and then i started thinking, is that true? hell yeah. i started to think about highschool and how it was very distinguishable.. then i got to thinking globally does it really seem like that out in the "real world?" frankly saying the "asian nerds" were those who were fobs, had glasses, and dressed that look. loved video games and anime and was very in touched with their asian culture. like you can tell, and the movie reflected that. same with the "cool asians" they have that swagger; dressed to impress, have that confidence that makes you know they're cool.

i know this pertains to other races as well, but i will focus on our asian american community. how did this separation come to be? i think that everyone forms their own little nitch with their type of people and thats how cliques came to be. the interesting thing is, is how the general belief integrates thes image and criteria on what is "cool" and thats how we judge people, and maybe not just people - but music, dance, art, movies - everything. and that's why we stereotype the typical cool asian rocking underground hip hop cuhs thats cool. that urban swagger- cuhs thats cool. they rap, dj, break, produce, tag, and play contact sports- cuhs that is cool!

on the other hand, those who represent the soft side of things are not as cool. video games 24/7 photography, tennis, their vastness of knowledge, non-designer clothes.. you get the point.

how do i feel about it? that's just how it is. you can follow the hype, or you can make your own. honestly, i wear whatever i'm comfortable wearing, and although it's not totally bullseye on either being a "cool asian" or an "asian nerd" i do still get pressured into wanting to fall into the category of being "cool" because you are constantly being judged and i want to make a good impression. the "cool" scene influences me everyday and i constantly shape myself to be noticed- what i wear, how i talk, and just how i wanna compose myself. and being an asian american emphasizes this need to be noticed.

being a minority i am already crippled tho - lost in a sea of hella asians and having this hunger to distinguish myself. and by picking a side.. cool or not, you are already weaving yourself out of half the population. and being asian, you really want that. to be noticed out in the world.

Background on poet

Suji Kwock Kim was born in Milton, New York in 1969. She attended Yale University where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1995 and received her master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Iowa’s writing program in 1997. Kim was also educated at Seoul National University and Yonsei University as a Fullbright Scholar, and at Stanford University as a Wallace Stegner Fellow. When she was twenty-one years old, she began writing poetry after she attended a poetry writing workshop in college. She was motivated to write poetry because she was intrigued by its structure. The rhythm and music of inspires her and she loves to write poetry even though it may seem tough at times because she has a hard time containing all her intense feelings and emotions.

Kim’s first book of poems, Notes from the Divided Country, won numerous awards. Some of the awards include the 2002 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award. Since then she has written a number of works and several anthologies. Her works have appeared in newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times and have been heard on National Public Radio. 24 of her anthologies have been translated into several languages including Korean, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Italian, German, Arabic, and Bengali. Her works have also appeared in other works of poetry and anthologies such as Poetry, Paris Review, The Nation, Yale Review, New England Review, Southwest Review, Harvard Review, and Asian-American Poetry: The Next Generation.

Besides being a poet, Kim is also a playwright with music and theatre. Her work Private Property is a multimedia play that showcased at Playwrights Horizons in New York and was featured on BBC-TV. Texts from her poetry book Notes from the Divided Country were sung by choruses, voiced, and had music accompaniment. Poems "hwajon," "Flight," and "Looking at a Yi Dynasty Rice Bowl" were sung at Pablo Casals Hall, Tokyo in December 2007. Poems "Occupation," "Fragments of the Forgotten War," and "Montage with Neon" had voice and piano composition accompaniment. Other numerous awards that she has received are being named a Notable Book by the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Association and the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights and also being a finalist for the PEN USA Award and the International Griffin Prize. Kim is also the recipient of grants from organizations such as the Association of Asian American Studies, Korea Foundation, Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, and San Francisco Arts Commission.

Suji Kwock Kim now divides her time between San Francisco and New York. She is married to her husband whom she met during her freshman year at Yale University.

InvASIAN of the Cultural Sort

Instead of the usual exam with 75 questions or a ten page essay, our Asian American Culture class went in a more dynamic direction for our midterm: cultural guerrillas with the intent to spread knowledge about the 1968 strike and to create an Asian American presence on campus. We split into four groups: visual/propaganda, fashion, skit, and poetry. My group (Just So Sick Girls + The Warriors) executed the poetry part by writing lines from poems and quotes about the SFSU strike of 1968 on boards all over campus. To cover more ground, each person paired up with one other group member and hit different buildings. Stephanie and I did our "invading" on the first and second floor of the Humanities building. One of the quotes we used was "Schools continue to be factories of the status quo, where children are shunted into prefabricated futures based on their class, gender, sexuality, and color" (from "A Letter to the Campus Community From the third world Liberation Front" written by TWLF participants). As it neared 8:00 a.m., students started filling the classrooms, so we began writing on the chalkboards in the bathrooms (ladies rooms only, of course). Watch the awesome video that Gelline put together for a better visual of what our group did.

In the beginning I dreaded waking up early to be on campus before classes started (I already get less than six hours of sleep each night), but I really enjoyed participating in the InvASIAN and was glad to see our whole group putting a lot of effort into it as well. The experience was quite thrilling—writing as fast as we can to lessen the possibility of someone walking in while we were still inside (to avoid the awkwardness) and opening doors to a crack and peeping into rooms to make sure they weren't occupied. With all the rooms we did, I'm sure that we raised a lot of awareness about the Asian American Studies panel and what happened in '68. Later while marching towards Malcolm X Plaza with the whole class, I felt like we were really striking, chanting "On strike—we're gonna shut it down."