Emily Jungmin Yoon

This is an incredibly poignant discussion of so many things I'd never even been told happened before reading this. This is not a book for the weak-hearted, or those in denial. It's a deep review, through poetry, of many 'touchy' subjects such as comfort women and similar war crimes. I read this for a poetry workshop class and it's stuck with me ever since. It's a raw view of hope and betrayal and destruction-- of crime, terrorism, and humanity. As horrifying as many of the subjects covered show more by Yoon here are, they're necessary reading, I believe. show less

Emily Jungmin Yoon ought to be considered one of the best poets we have currently. Her poems are short enough to read in one sitting, yet you'll find yourself wanting to reread them and parse out the intricate details she leaves behind like a treasure hunt.

Her poems beautifully address problematic Asian fetishization, Korean War tragedies, Japanese imperialist occupation of Korea, and identity, all with beautiful figurative language that is accessible and brilliant.

She organizes this show more collection around several poems listed as "An Ordinary Misfortune," which document the suffering of Korean comfort women during the Japanese imperialist occupation of Korea. Yoon brilliantly shows how this atrocity seemed almost "ordinary" and like a small "misfortune" to the world both then-and-now, yet these women's lives were destroyed.

Please read this book if you're a fan of poetry and want to be one of the first to read a poet I believe will become a classic. show less

A Cruelty Special To Our Species:Poems
by Emily Jungmin Yoon
2018
Harper Collins
4.5 / 5.0

This packs so much emotion, fear, and heartbreak, it is hard to grasp. The poems here share the brutality and sexual violence against women. Specifically, Korean ¨comfort women¨, women captured and forced to have sex with soldiers in Japanese occupied territories during WWII. Many of the soldiers were American. Let that sink in.....
The forced violence, and deaths pissed me off. It was difficult to show more read and devastating to think about or invision.....it moves you and terrifies you at the same time.
This is Jungmin Yoons debut. Her vitality, energy, and strength are amazing. I will look forward to more from her.
This is what poetry is all about. show less

This is Yoon's second poetry book, and it is an expansion of her previous book Ordinary Misfortunes.

You will find some of the same poems from her previous work, and new poems she has added to her collection. Not only is the cover art stunningly modern, but her wordplay in this anthology is genius. ?Her poems explore modern South Korean catastrophes like the sinking of the MW Sewol in 2014, the comfort women sex slaves of the Japanese imperialist army during the Korean War, Asian identity in show more America, womanhood, and Asian fetishization, to name a few.

My favorite poems from this collection (if I had to choose, since so many are brilliant), are "Fetish," "Bell Theory," "American Dream," and "Fear" show less