HOW DID YOU COME TO POETRY?

One of my favorite children’s books growing up was called “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” by Judith Kerr. It’s more of a short story, but the way it’s written, it’s poetry. The tiger did in fact come to tea, ate all the food in the house, then left. It was a tense situation written with seemingly little emotion, but I felt each word in that story heighten in me as the danger intensified. As I grew older, writing poetry kept me out of danger. It allowed me to reflect and keep myself grounded in times of hardship. It felt freeing to not follow a rigid sentence structure. Poetry was my escape and a way for me to express myself, allowing the tiger to leave the house without doing any harm.

HOW HAS YOUR RACIAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITY IMPACTED YOUR WRITING JOURNEY?

Being half-Korean, my family’s culture and past has influenced many works of poetry and creative writing. My halmuni (grandmother) has told me countless stories about her childhood and so I have written about her escape from North Korea during the Korean War. My other grandma is from Kansas City, Missouri. I have written about her growing up in a small, mostly white town during the Civil Rights Movement. I feel blessed to have such a wealth of different backgrounds and experiences help shape who I am and what’s important to me.

WHAT IS THE BEST PIECE OF WRITING ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

The best piece of writing advice that I’ve ever received is from my dad who writes for a living, and that is to write what you want and not what others expect from you. If you feel a certain way, tender to it and follow through. It would be easy to write what people want to hear. It’s harder to write the honest truth.