These shifts capture the disorientation of ancestral and personal trauma in daily life. The past becomes the reason why the speaker cannot “move on.” Through repetition Yoon unfolds the narrative’s quiet horrors and shifts the grounds of the reader’s understanding. The speaker uses the phrase “move on” as a vehicle to collapse the present and the past. The opening poem, “An Ordinary Misfortune,” leaps between subjects and time. How do IĪnswer that? Move on, move on, girls on the train. Why don’t you guys just get along? The guys: Japan and Korea. The too-weak cocktail… This question by a Canadian girl, a friend: Yoon recognizes in her author’s note that, “even if a part of history may not seem to be relevant to lives, it is-it is their reality too.” In the reality of Yoon’s collection, past and present vibrate simultaneously. By bringing these events to the forefront of our minds and conversations, these powerful poems insist on the importance of the past. A Cruelty Special to Our Species by Emily Jungmin Yoon is a tender and sharp collection that navigates the history of “comfort women” used by the Japanese Empire during World War II.
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