The War Still Within
Poems of the Korean Diaspora

War-Within-Front-Cover-4FEB2020.jpeg

10th Annual Literary Award Winner
Ko Won Memorial Foundation

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Dedicated to “all the women everywhere who have lost their names,” this book celebrates the courage of women to speak their truth and acknowledges the suffering of those who never could.

Part historical imagining of Japan’s so-called “comfort women” during WWII, part personal claiming of her own experiences with immigration and motherhood, and part exploration of identity across two languages, The War Still Within weaves together two cultures and gives voice to generations of Korean and Korean-American women.

In the past, when Korean women gave birth, their daughters were placed on the cold side of the room to die, without receiving a name. The most important roles for a woman were who she married and to give birth to sons. Even today, when Korean women get married, they are called by their role name: Ttal, Ahnae, Oma, or someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, someone’s mom. Korean women live all these roles and others, but do not live their names. I want us to remember their true names. I want all women, everywhere, to be proud of their true names, and to say,

“Call me by my name; I matter.”

 

Praise for The War Still Within

Praise

“In The War Still Within, Tanya Ko Hong illuminates dark corners of forbidden territories. She exposes her own history and struggles as a Korean-American woman, and in a searingly frank sequence she writes in the voices of those who were Korean “comfort women” during WWII. She delicately balances a stance that is explicit as well as gorgeously reflective. She vivifies and deepens experience in this dynamic collection. We should follow her lead, follow her call as a way into the future: ‘Tonight my tongue cuts galaxy.”

— MOLLY BENDALL, AUTHOR OF FIVE BOOKS OF POETRY AND PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT USC DORNSIFE

“Dedicated in part to her long-dead mother and to women who have lost their names, Tanya Ko Hong’s The War Still Within wages its battles in one exquisitely revealing poem after another. The author gives names to the nameless: the Korean comfort women during WWII, as well as women who came after, women who suffered too long in silence, whose sad fate shackled them to lives of quiet desperation. This extraordinary book is for them, and for all of us.”

— ALEXIS RHONE FANCHER, POETRY EDITOR OF CULTURAL WEEKLY AND AUTHOR OF FIVE BOOKS OF POETRY

“In The War Still Within, Tanya Ko Hong weaves a scarlet thread from Korea to the United States, from World War II to yesterday, from ancient stories to cell phone calls—this blood-soaked thread is the suffering of women and the legacy handed down from mother to daughter, for generations and across continents. These poems invoke exquisite imagery to tell the truth about exploitation, cruelty, betrayal, and displacement. The stories of these women burn themselves into your heart.”

— TERRY WOLVERTON, POET, NOVELIST, AND AUTHOR OF 12 BOOKS

“Tanya Ko Hong captures in these spare, elegant poems, a world of cruelty, suffering and survival. Here is beauty juxtaposed with pain so deep it’s almost impossible to put into words. And yet this fine poet does just that. She breaks our hearts with the truth and astonishes us with her compassion.”

-ELLEN BASS, Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets