A poetry collection centered on the Korean American experience.
The term "half-life" is used to describe radioactive decay,
pharmaceutical drugs, rocks, the atoms of our human bodies, and even
technological products. Using this idea as a starting point, A
Half-Life provides a rare glimpse into the Korean American experience.
The poems utilize the literal metaphor of the highway as the
intersecting point of America, Asia, and the globe, to reflect on the
emotional and physical journeys many Asian Americans take. From Chicago
to Seattle, from the biographical to the fictional, from current times
to the Korean and Vietnam wars, A Half-Life covers the joy and pain,
the probable and improbable, the individual and communal--the cultural
histories we all share.