After the class where we had an opportunity to listen to some of the poetry we had read, I had a discussion with a friend about Park's readings of her poems. Similar to Alex, I felt that her reading was unneccesarily forceful. Although there were portions of her poetry that I did feel required a more forceful/angry/whatever you want to call it tone, I felt that it was not necessary all the time. When I had first read her poetry, I sensed nostalgia and regret in many cases, especially in "Jejudo Dreams" and "Anatomy of a Fish Store." I would like to think that Ishle Park, writing as a Korean American, expected other Korean Americans to be able to empathize and connect with the poem as their own experiences as well. I know that I certainly did, as my family's story of immigration was not necessarily rosy. I felt that her poem "Jejudo Dreams" could also link with all sorts of other aspects of Korean history that has been lost to the 2nd generation of Korean Americans, including stories of struggle during the Japanese colonialization of Korea and stories from the Korean War. I guess I felt that there was some sort of collective regret in the loss of stories and histories that was going on in the poems. Having Park read the poems so forcefully, however, seemed to indicate that perhaps this was not the case, and that her poems were her own, and did not expect people, except for those who felt equally angry/forceful/etc. as her, to connect to the poems.

Going back to my discussion with a friend. She felt similarly that the tone that Park uses did not match my friend's interpretation of how she would've read it. This lead us into a discussion on form, very much like how it played out in class. Unfortunately, we didn't get to talk to much extent about this topic, so I'm going to elaborate a bit on my thoughts on the matter. I was drawn to the poems because of all the pain, struggle, and perserverence that wasn't written into the story, and how I was able to almost write my own version of the poem as I read it. Poetry, and written form, is nice in that way that it is static and can be interpretted and replayed as one wishes and interprets. Park's reading, on the other hand, passed me quickly and left me stunned, unable to really react for a while. I will suggest that her writing of the poem was presented as how I first saw it, as a sort of unifying work for Korean Americans, and even other immigrants or whoever feels some form of empathy with the poet. On the other hand, her reading is her own, a personal declaration of her narrative with improvisations to further personalize and claim the story. Just as I had been mentally rewriting the poem as I read it, Park was able to do the same, except by speaking it out loud. I have a lot of talks with people about the power of spoken word, and hip hop, and other forms of art as tools for empowerment. It wasn't until this year, being exposed not only to poetry, but Asian American hip hop artists , that I started to actually appreciate it as a form of struggle, rather than just book-knowing it.

-Min