I enjoyed most of Ishle Yi Park's spoken word on CD we heard in class, and one of them that struck me the most was "Jejudo Dreams."
Jejudo is an island located south of the Korean peninsula, and it is mainly known for its tourist attraction. I had a luxury to go visit Jejudo last summer, and I realized that Jejudo isn't all about its beautiful beaches, palm trees, and green scenery with playful horses running around in the field. Jejudo is the country's largest island, and it became a separate province in 1946. I feel like Jejudo is a place that has been excluded from the main part of Korean history, and I was surprised to find out so many interesting historical incidents and events (and important ones that I didn't even know about!) when I went to visit some of the historic sites last summer.
At any rate, one of the reasons why "Jejudo Dreams" left a strong impression on me is the women divers' singing in the background. I have always felt that there is something poetic about these women divers in Jejudo; they depend on their strong lungs to stay underwater for a long time, and they also face numerous dangers and risks while they are in the water. These women are an important part of sustaining Jejudo's economy (tourism isn't going so well as much as it used to in Jejudo), and I don't think it's an exaggeration when "these women, seal smooth with black river hair tied thick into a bun, will, even nine months pregnant, hold their breath and submerge."
I wonder why "Jejudo Dreams" was such a powerful read for me. Why did the voices of the women divers chanting in the background spread goosebumps all over my arms? Why do I connect with the spoken word artist when she describes her mother's memory and the past even when I don't really share the same background or experience with Ishle Park?
While Ishle expresses nostalgia and a sense of shame for "erasing her mother's momories and replacing them," she also describes the women divers as strong and enduring human beings that continue to live on and support their family. Then I go back to my first question, what is so poetic about these women divers?

"How it feels... to hold your breath so long
your lungs, on the verge of bursting, steel themselves
while you grab, wrench that thing you ned more than air,
and break surface."

My question is answered in this one verse. Despite the difficulties they face such as "pollution from Seoul" or "broken shells shrapnel," they hold their breath until their lung is about to burst to grab that thing that they need. The thing--economic support for the family, their desire to sustaining life, and their effort to endure the economic difficulties Jejudo is facing is so powerfully portrayed in Ishle Park's work.
While reading "Uma Haiku," the same warm and bittersweet feeling overwhelms me. Personally, I think that the relationship between a mother and her child is so strong in its own sense that when described in written form, I immediately remember my personal experience and connect it with my personal feelings and thoughts. In this haiku, it's more than the relationship between the writer and her mother. By reading these three short lines, I drew an image in my head, and it's something like this:
Mother is sitting in the kitchen table searching through newspaper want ads. The economic difficulty the family is experiencing is implied here, but the child still wonders why Mother is looking for a job. The mother's smile creates so many different feelings, and I think it's wonderful how much emotion this haiku is able to create. The beauty of simple yet complicated things!