"Jeju Island" by E. J. Koh

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend November 16, 2018   Jeju Island   E. J. Koh

Everything in the beginning is the same. Clouds let us look at the sun. Words let us watch a man about to be killed. The eye-hollows of his skull see home. When they stone him, he knows what a stone is—each word, a stone: The hole of his nose as dark as the door I pass through. The hole of his nose as dark as the door I pass through. Blowing bubbles, I wander the halls numerously. He's no longer my grandfather in weight. Among old bodies piled high, they aim. Living can tranquilize you.                Copyright © 2018 E. J. Koh. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "The Jeju Island massacre of April 3, 1948, is the 'red room,' or the unspeakable history of our past. What today is an island of restoration and tourism was the site of innocent civilian execution. An estimated 70 percent of the island's villages burned down. My grandmother's father, who I call grandfather, became the road he walked on as a young boy." —E. J. Koh   E. J. Koh is the author of A Lesser Love (Louisiana State University Press, 2017), recipient of the Pleiades Press Editors Prize, and the memoir The Magical Language of Others, forthcoming from Tin House Books in 2020. She lives in Seattle, Washington. Poetry by Koh   A Lesser Love (Louisiana State University Press, 2017) "Fifteen Years of Darkness" by Liu Xiaobo "as the owl augurs" by Julian Talamantez Brolaski "Letter from Kathmandu" by John Brandi November Guest Editor: Don Mee Choi   Thanks to Don Mee Choi, author of Hardly War (Wave Books, 2016), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read more about Choi and our guest editors for the year. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038