본문 바로가기
KERD
논문KCI 등재

아시아계 미국시의 재편성: 캐시 송, 명미 김, 수지 곽 김의 차이를 중심으로

Re-positioning Asian American Poetry: On the Differences between Cathy Song, Myung Mi Kim, and Suji Kwock Kim

0

조회

0

다운로드

7

인용

0

참고문헌

키워드

주제분류영어와문학

초록

This study examines Asian American poets’ activities that have contributed to contemporary American poetry’s heterogeneity and pluralism, and especially focuses on the works of three women poets−Cathy Song, Myung Mi Kim, and Suji Kwock Kim. Reading closely Cathy Song’s Picture Bride (1983), Myung Mi Kim’s Under Flag (1991), and Suji Kwock Kim’s Notes from the Divided Country (2003), this paper discusses not only their shared views but also their differences, which are particularly noteworthy. These three poets share their consciousness of the problems of culture, identity, family, ethnicity, region, and language. Yet there exist differences among these poets arising from dissimilarities in their family background, time of immigration, birthplace, and generation. This paper explores how differently and in what ways they embody their seemingly similar themes. Through her lyrical voice and organic images, Cathy Song’s Picture Bride deals with issues of family, assimilation, female experience, ethnic identity, and bond or distance between different generations. At the same time, Song, from the first generation of Asian American poets, attempts to show a threshold of imagination and creation, and a space where creative transformation begins. Myung Mi Kim’s Under Flag in an epic narrative explores the ruptures of Korean culture and history. With her experimental language and forms, Kim, a 1.5 generation Korean American, expresses “the uncertainties and sense of ruptured suspension of personal and communal displacement,” more subversively than Song. Through the work of “postmemory” and the deliberate distance between the poet and the speaker, and in dealing with Korean War and the psychology of individuals “traveling between” the living and the dead, between past and future, Suji Kwock Kim, a second generation Korean American, reveals a “more fluid sense of ethnic boundaries.” Since for her Asian heritage is just one of many facets of her identity, she can venture into new subject matter with a certain air of feminine strength. This research attempts to expand critical views of Asian American (women) poets that have been less visible than those of Asian American fiction writers, and mostly presented in terms of ethnicity and gender. Thus, this study will provide a foundation for future discussion of Asian American poetry’s implications for language, form, and narrative on the broader landscape of American poetry.

Abstract

This study examines Asian American poets’ activities that have contributed to contemporary American poetry’s heterogeneity and pluralism, and especially focuses on the works of three women poets−Cathy Song, Myung Mi Kim, and Suji Kwock Kim. Reading closely Cathy Song’s Picture Bride (1983), Myung Mi Kim’s Under Flag (1991), and Suji Kwock Kim’s Notes from the Divided Country (2003), this paper discusses not only their shared views but also their differences, which are particularly noteworthy. These three poets share their consciousness of the problems of culture, identity, family, ethnicity, region, and language. Yet there exist differences among these poets arising from dissimilarities in their family background, time of immigration, birthplace, and generation. This paper explores how differently and in what ways they embody their seemingly similar themes. Through her lyrical voice and organic images, Cathy Song’s Picture Bride deals with issues of family, assimilation, female experience, ethnic identity, and bond or distance between different generations. At the same time, Song, from the first generation of Asian American poets, attempts to show a threshold of imagination and creation, and a space where creative transformation begins. Myung Mi Kim’s Under Flag in an epic narrative explores the ruptures of Korean culture and history. With her experimental language and forms, Kim, a 1.5 generation Korean American, expresses “the uncertainties and sense of ruptured suspension of personal and communal displacement,” more subversively than Song. Through the work of “postmemory” and the deliberate distance between the poet and the speaker, and in dealing with Korean War and the psychology of individuals “traveling between” the living and the dead, between past and future, Suji Kwock Kim, a second generation Korean American, reveals a “more fluid sense of ethnic boundaries.” Since for her Asian heritage is just one of many facets of her identity, she can venture into new subject matter with a certain air of feminine strength. This research attempts to expand critical views of Asian American (women) poets that have been less visible than those of Asian American fiction writers, and mostly presented in terms of ethnicity and gender. Thus, this study will provide a foundation for future discussion of Asian American poetry’s implications for language, form, and narrative on the broader landscape of American poetry.

참고문헌 (30)

  1. Beach, Christopher, "The Cambridge Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Poetry" (2003), Cambridge UP
  2. Bruchac, Joseph, "Breaking Silence, An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Poets" (1983), The Greenfield Review P
  3. Chang, Juliana, "Reading Asian American Poetry", MELUS, 21, pp.81~98 (1996)
  4. Chang, Victoria, "Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation" (2004), U of Illinois P
  5. Chiu, Jeannie, "Identities in Process: The Experimental Poetry of Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Myung Mi Kim in Asian North American Identities", pp.84~101 (2004), Indiana UP
  6. Fujita-Sato, Gayle K, "‘Third World’ as Place and Paradigm in Cathy Song’s Picture Bride", MELUS, 15(1), pp.49~72 (1988)
  7. Goldensohn, Lorrie, "Flights Home", Poetry, 144(1), pp.40~47 (1984)
  8. Hirsch, Marianne, "The Generation of Postmemory", Poetics Today, 29(1), pp.103~128 (2008)
  9. Hugo, Richard, "Foreword. Picture Bride", pp.9~19 (1983), Yale UP
  10. Jeon, Joseph Jonghyun, "Speaking in Tongues: Myung Mi Kim’s Stylized Mouths", Studies in the Literary Imagination, 37(1), pp.125~148 (2004)
  11. Kang, Hyun Yi, "Re-membering Home in Dangerous Women: Gender & Korean Nationalism", pp.249~290 (1998), Routledge
  12. Keller, Lynn, "Interview with Myung Mi Kim", Contemporary Literature, 49(3), pp.335~356 (2008)
  13. Kim, Elaine H, "Korean American Literature in An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature", pp.156~191 (1997), Cambridge UP
  14. Kim, Myung Mi, "Under Flag" (1998), Kelsey St. P
  15. Kim, Suji Kwock, "Notes from the Divided Country" (2003), Louisiana State UP
  16. Kim, Suji Kwock, "22 Drafts of the Poem ‘Generation’", Esopus 6 (2006): 53-80. 1 July 2010 http:, esopusmag.com, pp.files, ARCHIVE_FLASH[DOI]
  17. Lee, James Kyung-Jin, "Myung Mi Kim in Words Matter: Conversations with Asian American Writers", pp.92~104 (2000), U of Hawaii P
  18. Lim, Shirley, "Rev. of Breaking Silence, an Anthology of Asian-American Poets", MELUS, 11(2), pp.85~90 (1984)
  19. Lim, Shirley, "Rev. of Picture Bride", MELUS, 10(3), pp.95~99 (1983)
  20. Lim, Shirley, "The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women’s Anthology" (1989), Calyx Books
  21. Ling, Amy, "Teaching Asian American Literature", Heath Anthology Newsletter, 9 (1993)
  22. Cathy Song, "Rev. of Picture Bride", Publishers Weekly, 223(19), pp.59~ (1983)
  23. Schultz, Susan M, "Cathy Song", DLB, 169, pp.267~274 (1996), Gale Research
  24. Song,Cathy, "Frameless Windows, Squares of Light" (1988), W. W. Norton
  25. Song, Cathy, "Picture Bride" (1983), Yale UP
  26. Song,Cathy, "School Figures" (1994), U of Pittsburgh P
  27. Wallace, Patricia, "Divided Loyalties: Literal and Literary in the Poetry of Lorna Dee Cervantes, Cathy Song and Rita Dove", MELUS, 18(3), pp.3~19 (1993)
  28. Young, Karl, "Rev. of Under Flag, by Myung Mi Kim, and Imaginary Income, by Maureen Owen", American Book Review, 15(2) (1993)
  29. Young, Robyn, "Poetry Criticism 21" (1998), Gale Research
  30. Zhou, Xiaojing, "Intercultural Strategies in Asian American Poetry in Re-placing America: Conversations and Contestations", pp.92~108 (2000), U of Hawaii P

관련 논문AI추천

이 간행물의 다른 논문 (8건)