Jihyun Yun Discusses Some Are Always Hungry at The Rumpus

Jihyun Yun, author of Some Are Always Hungry (University of Nebraska Press, 2020), speaks to Cameron Finch about the book, "the mouth as metaphor, a few favorite Korean fairy tales, and the ways in which language connects food, women, and violence." From their conversation:

Rumpus: Would you say that’s true in both American and Korean cultures and their languages, or do you see differences?

Yun: I feel as though in this regard there might be similarities. Though it is not my primary language, I know a fair amount of conversational Korean and I hear a lot of language like, “ Did she taste nice? Was she delicious?” There is also slang that translates to pick (as if from a tree) and eat, and from what I understand, the term is used in derogatory reference to sexual conquest of women but is not commonly used in reference to men. That’s also devouring language. I am not fluent in Korean anymore, though, so I can’t speak to how accurate my assessment of the usage is; this is just what I have been told from friends.

Rumpus: I’m interested in your use of mouths in this collection. The mouth is a touchstone for so many points of human connection: eating, speaking, kissing. Love and violence, pain and pleasure—all of it can be found in the mouths of your poems. In “Fields Notes from My Grandparents,” there’s this striking line: “Woman / and her mouth of blades.” Can you speak a bit about the power of the mouth, and what draws you to explore the mouth’s metaphors and mechanisms in your poetry?

Yun: I love this question; thank you. I was interested in exploring the mouth’s myriad utilities, as a vehicle of physical nourishment and expressing love via feeding or kissing, but also the role the mouth, and by extension the tongue, plays in preserving history both lived or transmitted, and to speak into possibility a movement towards elsewhere.…

Read on at The Rumpus.