Angela María Spring Reviews Rosanna Young Oh's debut, The Corrected Version, for the Washington Independent Review of Books
Poetry frequently draws upon myth, folklore, and archetypes, but the narrative poem often lives in this self-referential sphere of story through the lens of story. I find the best narrative poets who employ this type of meta-narrative are doing the work of interrogating other stories, creating a tonal and subject tension via the poem’s structure. And the master poet creates whole new worlds and mythologies.
Read the full review, which also features new collections from Jessica Q. Stark and Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe, in the Washington Independent Review of Books: https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/on-poetry-june-2023
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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