A review by jayisreading
Find Me as the Creature I Am: Poems by Emily Jungmin Yoon

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

I was thrilled when I first saw the news that Yoon was releasing a new collection. I was profoundly moved by her previous collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species, and started Find Me as the Creature I Am with high expectations. I’m glad to say that the delicate, tender, and intimate nature of her previous poems continued into this new collection. Split primarily into three sections, I was struck by the first and third sections’ attention to ephemerality and permanence, especially in relation to nature. There was an urgency to many of the poems that asked the reader to deeply consider the consequences of climate change, the fleeting moments of nature that may forever disappear. Yet, simultaneously, Yoon also embraces what remains eternal, particularly the boundless love one has, whether it be for nature, for loved ones, for language and poetry— So much of the universe can be (and is) ephemeral, but Yoon suggests that permanency is possible in our actions. There were two passages that I felt addressed this beautifully, one being from “Love and Death Speaking at Once” (“Memory sustains // and fades. Take a picture. Keep a journal. Underline, / dog-ear, leave margin notes in your book, mark it // with your touch.) and the other from “Body Of” (“In order to continue living, / we try to leave evidence of our lives. We accumulate / bodies in whatever way we can.”).

Sandwiched between these two sections is a single long poem titled, “I leave Asia and become Asian.” I have to admit, this poem felt very out-of-place to me, especially because it somewhat veered away from what the other two sections’ focus, so the poem’s inclusion in this collection struck me as curious. Despite this, I still enjoyed this poem enormously, and I appreciated Yoon’s introspections as she considered what it means to be Asian/Asian American. While she does touch on the violence that East Asians face(d) (especially at the start of the pandemic), I was most taken to the subtle but sharp critique Yoon made of the complexities of the Asian/Asian American identity/ies, which she writes that they “feel at once too big and too limiting.” She also asks the reader to consider who is privileged when Asian/Asian American is mentioned and directly inquires, “An East Asian face? Like mine?” I would have loved more poems about this particular topic, and I feel that Yoon would have explored it with astute care.

Once again, Yoon makes ample space for the reader to sit with her poems and reflect with this quiet and beautiful collection.

Some favorites: “All my friends who loved trees are dead,” “Love and Death Speaking at Once,” “Affection,” “I leave Asia and become Asian,” “Gray Areas,” “Evolution,” and “Vow”

Note: Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
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