Dear students of English 16 (Craft of Poetry), @thisisejkoh was so magnanimous with her time, experience, and spirit as she Zoomed in to today's class to answer your questions. (She even made sure to talk about the poem "Tiger Balm"!) THANK YOU, EJ! ❤️ But also, thank you all for your part in making an amazing conversation happen, ranging from: - how "magnanimity" can be needed to finish a poem; - how a poem might be done when it's changed something in the writer; - how translation involves giving words meaning from other words and contexts but also asking what's involved in making words understandable in our real historical contexts (e.g. between South Korea and the USA); - how in a very personal poem, the experience can be unique but the feelings are universal; - how writing about something you know well though others might not have heard of it (and it might not have been valued in school) (Tiger Balm, things you knew from your own family and heritage and experience growing up) can be an opportunity to expand what we all know, to be part of things bigger than us, and to make them known (what literature can do); - and even the unlikely connections between the poem "Carrots and Celery" and hip-hop dancing (the "drop," pauses gestures created by the lineation to convey both horror and childlikeness, the symmetry and 'tissue' of "hadbones"). Like EJ and some of you were saying afterwards, maybe this will be one of you in ten years! (With thanks to EJ Koh (University of California, Irvine '10), and the Emphasis in Creative Writing!) @ucirvine @ucienglish @ucihumanities @kundimanforever @pleiadespress @pleiades_magazine @uofwa #dearstudents #poetry #poetsofinstagram #poems #poem #ejkoh #uci #ucirvine #uofwa #universityofwashington #zotzot #literary #socal #asianamerican #koreanamerican #creativewriting #translation #hiphop #tigerbalm https://www.instagram.com/p/B5LlnsJB9HK/?igshid=yunegp7kt6bq
