Jennifer Kwon Dobbs was born in Wonju-Si, South Korea. Her debut collection, Paper Pavilion, received the White Pine PressPoetry Prize and was published in 2007. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 5 AM, Blackbird, Cadences, Crazyhorse,Cimarron Review, Cream City Review, MiPOesias, Poetry NZ, andTulane Review, among other journals; have been anthologized inEchoes Upon Echoes (Asian American Writers Workshop, 2003) and Language for a New […]
“Non saperlo per te, pei tuoi puri occhi muore Butterfly…” —Giacomo Puccini, Madama Butterfly Again, my false mother of verbena is singing The aria that I’ll recite as if I’m a natural Child among night flowers opening their dark eyes to the moon Not a mother to the ocean that bears its resemblance Like a […]
for omma Outside your lit window, I stand ten thousand miles away. Our distance shifts whenever you pass from room to room, Whenever I pause from reading Kim So Wol’s poetry.
“Might it be that this piece of wood has learned to weep and cry like a child?” —C. Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio As he angled the screw into the joint he hesitated to fasten its knee more real than his own stiffened by winters, nights of hearth & plates of black bread that taught […]
I remain in your leave-taking like the mandolin’s note. Long and lingering perfume of petals enfolds my body because you desired me in a red aura of candles, then clouded by your palms seeking my origins in cities you traveled in search of Lorca finding sandalwood uncurling like a ghost in a room darkened by […]
“I the undersigned, hereby certify I have custody of the records of birth Relating to said child, in my office And as required by the law.” —Livingstone Adoption Agency Confucius can’t spank me with a bamboo switch. I’ve folded paper cranes for your journey here, learned Hangul from tutors so that I can greet you, […]
(1970-2001) After the bullet discharges through the tunnel of his mouth, after it shatters the Oklahoma evening, rips through ragweed & across many rivers, my apartment in Pittsburgh, the metal clips my arm, slams into a plaster wall, & the silence is his body slackening & the black fact of the gun underwater. I compress […]
snags its left wing on the drunk’s shoulder swaying as the chill pushes through. Then still— she sleeps sagged across the railing, her heart a warehouse beached by the dock bridges knocking, the water absorbing threats for tenderness, deals with doubles, the face that never intended to be an accuser, tin and use a bereft […]