Peter H. Lee

As one would expect from such a varied collection of poetry - one with so many contributors - the poems within wander over quite a range. I really enjoyed having the little "why I write" section from each poet at the beginning, before her poems, and found it offered some depth when considered along with the poems, in some cases.

The poems themselves as well as the references and many of the "why I write" pages offered interesting context to recent Korean history to me.

. . .while the preface written by Peter H. Lee, who put the collection together, was interesting/nice to read, the introduction written by Kim Chôngnam left me frustrated and wanting to scream at the sexism and general eurgh of it all. (May I venture, perhaps, that it is infuriatingly condescending to say such things as 'there is no way [poet] could have realised the meaning behind her choice to use [specific word] in her work'? She's a poet it is very much her literal job to choose words for their specific meaning.)… (mere)