What critics say: “These sharp-tongued poems, often levitating on their own buoyant wit, are full of Jiwon Choi’s delightful ‘wickedness and dirty humor.’ Her work is propelled by New York immigrant energy, which of course makes it quintessentially American.”
—Terence Winch
“ ‘Buttering,’ bedazzling’ ‘shellacking,’ ‘kissing’ – in I Used to Be Korean, Jiwon Choi’s “present participles wrestle with the past tense, winning every match through sheer candor and vitality. The poet’s ‘rosebud power’ and honesty are dynamic, as is her grasp of history, family, identity, and eros. Out of keen attention, Choi makes poetry of butchery and blame and pockets empty but for lint. There’s something Sapphic—both scorching and tender—in a poem like ‘I Ate Your Heart Out,’ and something of Robert Frank’s vision in Choi’s fresh takes on, say, Texas (i.e., ‘America’). ‘Korea is far away’ from the Oyster Bar in Grand Central and many of the other sites mentioned in these poems, yet it (the mother) is ever present, whatever the poet is or ‘used to be.’ Choi is learned but never academic (she’s too nimble and street-smart to be academic), and I love her way of seeing and thinking. I Used to Be Korean (a riddle of a title) is a beautiful book.”
—Linda Norton
