Dictée is the best-known work of the versatile and important Korean American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. A classic work of autobiography that transcends the self, Dictée is the story of several women: the Korean revolutionary Yu Guan Soon, Joan of Arc, Demeter and Persephone, Cha’s mother Hyung Soon Huo (a Korean born in Manchuria to first-generation Korean exiles), and Cha herself. The elements that unite these women are suffering and the transcendence of suffering. The book is divided into nine parts structured around the Greek Muses. Cha deploys a variety of texts, documents, images, and forms of address and inquiry to explore issues of dislocation and the fragmentation of memory. The result is a work of power, complexity, and enduring beauty.
Poetry’s Transformative Power
Poetry can be powerful because it succinctly puts a voice to innermost feelings and can provide a dialogue for our experience. People tend to write poetry when in the midst of powerful emotions, using it to process questions, anxieties, grief, anger, and optimism, so this National Poetry Month we’re turning to poetry for uncertain times.
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