- (i) spend my days dreaming
beneath/above the city streets
in long subway corridors
gliding
propelled by tracks laid down by
others.
above slick streets repaved with
bouncing-jarring potholes
bumps-and-manic bus drivers braking
(if i grow my hair long, will they...
- i dont even need to ask...
i know the answer -
they WILL
treat me as equal
with the respect my birth year would
demand of them)
inbetween the layers that mild winters do demand
(this most certainly is not the twin cities that ive loved so well)
in fact most everything right now (in life)
is that great daunting inbetween
inbetwixt
the one day is yet to come
i dreamed so big before
that now i must learn to hear the rest of me thats been silent in hopeful wishing
... and so they see what it is that they are looking for
short hair no high heels
can only mean one thing
never two or three
or even somewhere decimaled
... and thats ok
cuz my earphones give sound to scape
and all i need do is get on the bus
go down the stairs
into the city's tunnels
and dream bigger than what she wished for me
because now ive found her
because now
i can find
all the rest of me
thats been waiting up above and down below
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
"1:48 Voices from within the Korean diaspora" feat Jennifer Kwon Dobbs TBS radio 27 Jan 2010Seoul
Featured guest : Jennifer Kwon Dobbs - author of "Paper Pavilion," currently working on second book, guest editor of the 3rd edition of JKAS and assistant professor of English at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota
Reporting by: kim thompson
*** Jennifer Kwon Dobbs' bio:
"Jennifer Kwon Dobbs received the New England Poetry Club's Shelia Motton Book Award for her debut collection of poetry, Paper Pavilion (White Pine Press 2007). Currently assistant professor of English at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, Kwon Dobbs is working on an essay collection about the political geographies of overseas Korean adoptee birth searches and a second book of poetry."
Blog and info about Paper Pavilion: http://www.jkwondobbs.com
A bit more about Jennifer: (Report)
Jennifer Kwon Dobbs:
Jennifer is currently in Seoul for the month of January to work on her second book which will be a collection of prose and essays on "the geographies of our (adoptees) birth searches and the maps we end up making." She is also in Seoul to work on the third issue of the Journal of Korean Adoption Studies of which she is the guest editor and to do follow up work interviewing women from the Korean single mother's group Miss Mamma Mia.
The book that she is currently writing is the second in a two part "series" that evolved out of her Literature and Creative Writing dissertation at the University of Southern California where she received her MA and PhD. Her first book was a book of poetry entitled "Paper Pavilion” which received the New England Poetry Club's Sheila Motton Book Award. (For excerpts and more info on this book: www.jkwondobbs.com )
Jennifer's second book, which currently has a publisher but not a specific release date, will focus on the Korean adoptee search for birth family and how in this search is the discovery of reunion and identity. Through essays and prose she will explore the themes of "success and failure" in relation to the search process as well as discovery both in terms of personal and cultural identity as well as the creation and discovery of community. It will talk about why the birth search for adoptees is powerful and how the search reveals how important it is for us to go back and forth in our stories - that the story is not linear and that "the fake straightening of that loop (is a part of the violence)."
Jennifer is also as the guest editor of the third Journal of Korean Adoption Studies - which is published by the Korean adoptee organization Global Overseas Adoptees' Link (G.O.A.'L.) The peer-reviewed journal is a collection of academic essays, testimonies of adoption, illustrations, and reviews of new publications or releases related to Korean adoption studies. The third issue of Journal of Korean Adoption Studies (JKAS) focuses on community as a significant project that Korean adoptees have been engaged in building since the early 1980s. This issue facilitates opportunities to examine struggles for community by documenting previous models on which adoptees have relied to imagine possible directions toward developing collective unity. For more information go to: http://www.goal.or.kr and click under "References Room" where you will see the link for the Journal of Korean Adoption Studies.
To purchase the 1st issue go to: http://goal.or.kr/eng/?slms=room&lsms=1&sl=6&ls=46
or email:
To submit work for consideration in this issue email: jkas.goal@gmail.com
Deadline for submissions is: 1 April 2010
Jennifer is also a member of the steering committee for the academic symposium to be hosted by IKAA in August 2010 that last 1:48 guest Kim Park Nelson is a part of.
TO LISTEN click play
About 1:48
This is a report that will air once every 3 weeks and will feature korean adoptees who are artists, activists, and philosophers.
I (kim thompson) will do the reporting and through the suggestions of others as well as my own contacts bring on different voices from within the adoptee community who live both in Seoul and abroad. For the time being it will air as a regular report that is featured on the "Steve Hatherly Show"
The reason that I've named the report thus is due to this fact (which I extracted from an article by Jane Jeong Trenka )
"since 1953 about 200,000 korean children have been sent to the west for adoption. with korea having a population of approximately 48 million this means one in every 48 korean citizens is affected by adoption. this show will feature some of those 200,000 who have returned home."
HOW TO BE A PART OF SUPPORTING THIS SHOW:
It is to our knowledge the first consistent featuring of a report like this on the radio. Your comments and feedback and listening participation are vital. PLEASE make sure to email Tim Alper at TBS radio with your support for the show and tell him how you heard it (either live or on my blog)
Tim Alper: tda7@hotmail.com
If you have guest or topic suggestions please email me (Kim Thompson) at: kimmer_t@hotmail.com
* The purpose of this show is to feature the voices of Korean adoptees
Reporting by: kim thompson
*** Jennifer Kwon Dobbs' bio:
"Jennifer Kwon Dobbs received the New England Poetry Club's Shelia Motton Book Award for her debut collection of poetry, Paper Pavilion (White Pine Press 2007). Currently assistant professor of English at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, Kwon Dobbs is working on an essay collection about the political geographies of overseas Korean adoptee birth searches and a second book of poetry."
Blog and info about Paper Pavilion: http://www.jkwondobbs.com
A bit more about Jennifer: (Report)
Jennifer Kwon Dobbs:
Jennifer is currently in Seoul for the month of January to work on her second book which will be a collection of prose and essays on "the geographies of our (adoptees) birth searches and the maps we end up making." She is also in Seoul to work on the third issue of the Journal of Korean Adoption Studies of which she is the guest editor and to do follow up work interviewing women from the Korean single mother's group Miss Mamma Mia.
The book that she is currently writing is the second in a two part "series" that evolved out of her Literature and Creative Writing dissertation at the University of Southern California where she received her MA and PhD. Her first book was a book of poetry entitled "Paper Pavilion” which received the New England Poetry Club's Sheila Motton Book Award. (For excerpts and more info on this book: www.jkwondobbs.com )
Jennifer's second book, which currently has a publisher but not a specific release date, will focus on the Korean adoptee search for birth family and how in this search is the discovery of reunion and identity. Through essays and prose she will explore the themes of "success and failure" in relation to the search process as well as discovery both in terms of personal and cultural identity as well as the creation and discovery of community. It will talk about why the birth search for adoptees is powerful and how the search reveals how important it is for us to go back and forth in our stories - that the story is not linear and that "the fake straightening of that loop (is a part of the violence)."
Jennifer is also as the guest editor of the third Journal of Korean Adoption Studies - which is published by the Korean adoptee organization Global Overseas Adoptees' Link (G.O.A.'L.) The peer-reviewed journal is a collection of academic essays, testimonies of adoption, illustrations, and reviews of new publications or releases related to Korean adoption studies. The third issue of Journal of Korean Adoption Studies (JKAS) focuses on community as a significant project that Korean adoptees have been engaged in building since the early 1980s. This issue facilitates opportunities to examine struggles for community by documenting previous models on which adoptees have relied to imagine possible directions toward developing collective unity. For more information go to: http://www.goal.or.kr and click under "References Room" where you will see the link for the Journal of Korean Adoption Studies.
To purchase the 1st issue go to: http://goal.or.kr/eng/?slms=room&lsms=1&sl=6&ls=46
or email:
To submit work for consideration in this issue email: jkas.goal@gmail.com
Deadline for submissions is: 1 April 2010
Jennifer is also a member of the steering committee for the academic symposium to be hosted by IKAA in August 2010 that last 1:48 guest Kim Park Nelson is a part of.
TO LISTEN click play
About 1:48
This is a report that will air once every 3 weeks and will feature korean adoptees who are artists, activists, and philosophers.
I (kim thompson) will do the reporting and through the suggestions of others as well as my own contacts bring on different voices from within the adoptee community who live both in Seoul and abroad. For the time being it will air as a regular report that is featured on the "Steve Hatherly Show"
The reason that I've named the report thus is due to this fact (which I extracted from an article by Jane Jeong Trenka )
"since 1953 about 200,000 korean children have been sent to the west for adoption. with korea having a population of approximately 48 million this means one in every 48 korean citizens is affected by adoption. this show will feature some of those 200,000 who have returned home."
HOW TO BE A PART OF SUPPORTING THIS SHOW:
It is to our knowledge the first consistent featuring of a report like this on the radio. Your comments and feedback and listening participation are vital. PLEASE make sure to email Tim Alper at TBS radio with your support for the show and tell him how you heard it (either live or on my blog)
Tim Alper: tda7@hotmail.com
If you have guest or topic suggestions please email me (Kim Thompson) at: kimmer_t@hotmail.com
* The purpose of this show is to feature the voices of Korean adoptees
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