WE’VE DISTANCED OURSELVES

WE’VE DISTANCED OURSELVES is a poetry collection that reflects upon the growth and grief associated with a fading childhood, the wounds from a struggling Korean American immigrant family, and the whispered stories of alcoholism and addiction in Richmond, the city I called my home for four years. As I wrote each piece, I thought back to the experiences I’d witnessed and endured as a first-generation Asian American immigrant in my 20s living in suburban, Virginia, Richmond, and now, Boston. The collection begins with a prose poem set in an oddly familiar scene during my childhood: the corner seat of a crowded hair salon, with scissors whizzing by the ears and chatter filling the remaining sounds. MINDLESS CHATTER serves as the initial flashback to the other memories stored in poetry-the rest of which is set in a chronological order. The collection encapsulates my family’s initial misshaped promise of the American Dream, my newfound bilingual nature, and an elegy and introduction to my mid-20s.