Youna Kwak is author of sur vie, and has been published in Po&sie, The Los Angeles Review, The Hopkins Review, Chicago Review, The Offing, La Traductière, Oversound, jubilat, Boston Review, and Action, Spectacle. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

“To be mother or not to be mother is what I kept questioning as I read through Youna Kwak’s stunning second poetry collection—how she muddles as well as mothers the seemingly inconsequential question with her fabulist logic and language. Look carefully, and Kwak’s ‘book of the death of the mother’ grows from the messed-up, bloody bed of race, class, gender, and nation. Kwak’s ‘mother’ is not unlike Kim Hyesoon’s ‘mommy’ in that they perpetually mutate and survive, tragically or not, under the same moon, the same shredded tongue, the same global warfare.”—Don Mee Choi, author, DMZ Colony

Youna Kwak is author of sur vie, and has been published in Po&sie, The Los Angeles Review, The Hopkins Review, Chicago Review, The Offing, La Traductière, Oversound, jubilat, Boston Review, and Action, Spectacle. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

“To be mother or not to be mother is what I kept questioning as I read through Youna Kwak’s stunning second poetry collection—how she muddles as well as mothers the seemingly inconsequential question with her fabulist logic and language. Look carefully, and Kwak’s ‘book of the death of the mother’ grows from the messed-up, bloody bed of race, class, gender, and nation. Kwak’s ‘mother’ is not unlike Kim Hyesoon’s ‘mommy’ in that they perpetually mutate and survive, tragically or not, under the same moon, the same shredded tongue, the same global warfare.”—Don Mee Choi, author, DMZ Colony

Youna Kwak is author of sur vie, and has been published in Po&sie, The Los Angeles Review, The Hopkins Review, Chicago Review, The Offing, La Traductière, Oversound, jubilat, Boston Review, and Action, Spectacle. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

“To be mother or not to be mother is what I kept questioning as I read through Youna Kwak’s stunning second poetry collection—how she muddles as well as mothers the seemingly inconsequential question with her fabulist logic and language. Look carefully, and Kwak’s ‘book of the death of the mother’ grows from the messed-up, bloody bed of race, class, gender, and nation. Kwak’s ‘mother’ is not unlike Kim Hyesoon’s ‘mommy’ in that they perpetually mutate and survive, tragically or not, under the same moon, the same shredded tongue, the same global warfare.”—Don Mee Choi, author, DMZ Colony