Oh leads us backward and forward in time … continually weighing the value of things using the rich imagery of a childhood in that market. In “Scene with Watermelon from Hokusai,” Oh writes:
I say that the missing
watermelon half is human
Blueberries, mango, peach, and artichoke each get their turn in this wider figuring. Each poem finds its own shape on the page, each grounded with narrative that holds those unanswerable questions.
Thank you, Karin Falcone Krieger and The Colorado Review team, for your consideration and review of The Corrected Version by Rosanna Young Oh.
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Read the review in The Colorado Review
At its heart, Rosanna Young Oh’s debut collection of poems, The Corrected Version, is an immigrant narrative that ponders what it means to be an American. Who or what do we leave behind when we move to a new country? Who or what do we take with us? Traveling through Korean folklore, paintings, Long Island, a family grocery store, and Buddhism, the book meditates on the process of making meaning out of the lives we create for ourselves—a task that has the speaker relentlessly questioning, investigating, erasing, and rewriting the stories she ultimately chooses to inherit as her own. A book about survival, it is also a journey made gentle by moments of love and compassion.
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