This debut collection in English from Korean poet Moon Bo Young insists that you, as a reader, put down your expectations of what should be important or serious. While these poems are about god, death, love, and literature, they are also just as much about a hat with a herd of cows on it, science experiments on monkeys’ attention, the eating of cherry tomatoes, weeping carrots, and pimple popping. The surrealism and humor in these poems allow them to travel so far in the span of a stanza. Reading this book is like going on a picnic with your weirdest best friend and asking them what-if questions until the sun goes down―there’s room for everything, from dark anecdotes to funny quips and surprising vulnerability. This book is like that: there’s room for everything. Skillfully rendered by award-winning translator Hedgie Choi, this is a book that will change the way you think about what a poem can accomplish.

Moon Bo Young is a poet who has a hard time waiting for her nail polish to dry. She was born on Jeju Island, South Korea, in 1992. When it got windy on Jeju Island, she put a flat rock on top of her hat. She likes pizza more than poems, and she likes journaling more than pizza, and she loves her friends more than journaling. She has two books of poetry, Pillar of Books and Battle Ground, and a book of essays, The Many Ways to Hate People.

Hedgie Choi is a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas. She is the co-translator of Hysteria by Kim Yi Deum, and her poems have appeared in Washington Square Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, West Branch, The Journal, and elsewhere.

PRAISE