A Cruelty Special to Our Species by Emily Jungmin Yoon

All the poems between these covers feel like finished works, written from a vantage point of authoritative maturity and insight each poem in the collection is sufficient unto itself, and yet, simultaneously, almost every poem in the collection feels necessary to the whole. You don't have to be steeped in the world of contemporary verse to be able to understand and appreciate this poetry, but if you are thus steeped, you won't find these poems lacking, either. I've read countless debut poetry collections over the past decade or so with a more-or-less critical eye, and this is one of the strongest debut collections I can remember - consistently readable, clear, and compelling.

I've long known Yoon's work via the poetry salons of New York City as well as via her role as poetry editor for the Asian American Writers Workshop's literary magazine The Margins, so I was eager to finally read this. “What is right in war.” Moving readers through time, space, and different cultures, and bringing vivid life to the testimonies and confessions of the victims,Yoon takes possession of a painful and shameful history even while unearthing moments of rare beauty in acts of resistance and resilience, and in the instinct to survive and bear witness. “What is a body in a stolen country,” Yoon asks. In wrenching language, A Cruelty Special to Our Species unforgettably describes the brutalities of war and the fear and sorrow of those whose lives and bodies were swept up by a colonizing power, bringing powerful voice to an oppressed group of people whose histories have often been erased and overlooked. A piercing debut collection of poems exploring gender, race, and violence from a sensational new talent In her arresting collection, urgently relevant for our times, poet Emily Jungmin Yoon confronts the histories of sexual violence against women, focusing in particular on Korean so-called “comfort women,” women who were forced into sexual labor in Japanese-occupied territories during World War II.

A Cruelty Special to Our Species by Emily Jungmin Yoon