[These] accumulated poems [are] a smoldering tragedy, a heady
descent, songs from a pit where what glints may be gems or the moon off
snake scales.--Douglas Kearney
Sun Yung Shin's poems animate the elements of the epic poem and Korean
history across a dystopian dreamscape of fairy tale and folklore. Filled
with pithy observations and striking lyrics, this collection explores
alienation, moral isolation, and nationhood.
Sun Yung Shin is the author of Skirt Full of Black, which won the
2008 Asian American Literary Award for poetry, and the children's book
Cooper's Lesson, and is the co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on
Transracial Adoption. Raised in Chicago, Illinois, Shin currently lives
near Minneapolis, Minnesota, and frequently returns to Korea.