Cathy Park Hong

So this post is for next week and I know it is a little early, but I also went to Cathy Park Hong's reading of her poems last night and I just wanted to post while it is still fresh in my mind. I really enjoyed listening to her read. Having her come in to class and then hearing some of her other work actually gave me a greater appreciation for her as a poet. I enjoyed reading the Ontology of Chang and Eng in class, but I struggled with her excerpts of Dance Dance Revolution. Hearing the guide's voice read by her, completely changed my perspective of her work. The language that had previously appeared completely unintelligible to me on the page, was beautiful and poetic when she spoke it. I really enjoyed the poems she read from her Dance Dance Revolution collection, but I also found her earlier works from Translating Mu'om to be good too. I thought it was really interesting to see the diversity of her subject choices for her collections. Each subject is so very different from the other, although they all seem to contain a common thread. The link between them all, to me seems to be moments where diverse cultures meet and merge together, and the impact that merger has both upon the individual, and language itself. I am really interested to see what her collection of the Western Frontier Boom Towns will turn out to be. Overall, I would say I really enjoyed hearing Hong's work. There is a lot to be said for hearing poetry straight from the mouth of the poet, something I have not often had the opportunity to do.