Cathy Park Hong's Translating Mo'um
Nov. 24th, 2007 11:49 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
Over Thanksgiving, I read Cathy Park Hong's first book of poetry Translating Mo'um (Hanging Loose Press, 2002).

It's really quite amazing. I don't think I understand most of it, and it's the kind of writing that makes me want to go back and read and think and read some more. I think I'm going to buy a copy now! (I read the library's copy.) Hong is doing something exciting with language -- lines unfold words full of contradictions and uneasy connections.
( Assiduous Rant )
In this text, she also focuses a lot on bodies and how people view bodily difference. My favorite poems are the ones dealing with Chang and Eng, the Siamese Twins, and with Saartje Baartman, aka Hottentot Venus. The Siamese Twins and Hottentot Venus were subjected to the gaze of the "civilized world" and used to render the cultures and worlds from which they came primitive, grotesque, and exotic. Hong's poems about them imagine their perspectives, pushing back against the scrutiny on their bodies.
Additional things: The Village Voice has a strange review of Translating Mo'um: "Twin Set" by David Mills.
Poets & Writers online has a wonderful, short interview with Hong, mostly about her second book, Dance Dance Revolution (Norton, 2007): CATHY PARK HONG ON IDENTITY-POLITICS POETRY AND BUSH AS THE TRUE POSTMODERN PRESIDENT.

It's really quite amazing. I don't think I understand most of it, and it's the kind of writing that makes me want to go back and read and think and read some more. I think I'm going to buy a copy now! (I read the library's copy.) Hong is doing something exciting with language -- lines unfold words full of contradictions and uneasy connections.
( Assiduous Rant )
In this text, she also focuses a lot on bodies and how people view bodily difference. My favorite poems are the ones dealing with Chang and Eng, the Siamese Twins, and with Saartje Baartman, aka Hottentot Venus. The Siamese Twins and Hottentot Venus were subjected to the gaze of the "civilized world" and used to render the cultures and worlds from which they came primitive, grotesque, and exotic. Hong's poems about them imagine their perspectives, pushing back against the scrutiny on their bodies.
Additional things: The Village Voice has a strange review of Translating Mo'um: "Twin Set" by David Mills.
Poets & Writers online has a wonderful, short interview with Hong, mostly about her second book, Dance Dance Revolution (Norton, 2007): CATHY PARK HONG ON IDENTITY-POLITICS POETRY AND BUSH AS THE TRUE POSTMODERN PRESIDENT.