One of Yoon’s favorite poems in the book is about her grandmother’s experience during the Korean War. Yoon, who grew up in Canada and studied in the US after immigrating from South Korea, connects her personal experiences as a female Asian immigrant with the experiences of comfort women in her frank, yet deep and piercing, poems. 14 with the full English version included in the back, Yoon sees her purpose as not to inform, as many Koreans are familiar with the history, but to continue the voice so that the history is not forgotten. With the publication of the Korean translation of the book Aug. It’s beautifully done.When writer Emily Jungmin Yoon released her 2018 book of poems “A Cruelty Special to Our Species,” it was to inform North American readers about the “comfort women,” a euphemistic term for military sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. These poems help to give voice to women whose stories are not commonly told.
Her words are lyrical, vivid, and enriched with a playful examination of language, the way mean slips depending on perspective and how language can be a powerful tool. I loved this collection of poetry, which was so moving in how it addressed intense subject matters. Her poems beautifully lift the voices of these women, helping to make them heard and remembered — while also providing insight into current events, environmentalism, and her own personal experiences as a woman in the world.
At its core these poems delve into the lives of Korean comfort women of the 1930s and 40s, reflecting on not only the history of sexual slavery, but also considering its ongoing impact. My first podcast interview at New Books in Poetry is live! I had a lovely conversation with Emily Jungmin Yoon regarding her  first full-length collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco Books, 2018), which examines forms of violence against women.
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