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Shelli Cornelison writes short stories & novels in between getting up to let her dogs outside & back in again, & outside & back in again, & outside … until she gives up & goes to a coffee shop. Teen Shelli would’ve sunk The Pantry Snake in the lake, jar & all, & never owned up to it.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Xelena González is a screenwriter, essayist, poet, & author of All Around Us/Por Todo Nuestro Alrededor, winner of multiple accolades, including an American Indian Youth Literature Honor Award. Where Wonder Grows, her sophomore collaboration with muralist Adriana Garcia, is forthcoming in 2020 by Cinco Puntos Press. Xelena’s storytelling skills were honed as a children’s librarian in San Antonio & in Guangzhou, China. Her recent independent release, Loteria Remedios, re-imagines the iconography of the traditional Mexican card game through the lens of visionary fiction.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Lake Freeman lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She holds an MFA in fiction writing from the university of Arkansas & is at work on a novel. This is her first publication.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Tessa Yang’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Foglifter, The Cincinnati Review, Cream City Review, & elsewhere. She received her MFA from Indiana University & is an assistant professor of English at Hartwick College. Find more of her work online: www.tessayang.com.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Kirie Pedersen’s writing appears in numerous journals & includes nominations for the Pushcart & other awards. “Getting a Life-Coming of Age with Killers” was selected as notable by Hilton Als & Robert Atwan for Best American Essays 2018.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Sony Ton-Aime is the director of Literary Arts at Chautauqua Institution. He is the author of a chapbook, LaWomann (2019), & the forthcoming Haitian Creole translation of Olympic Hero: The Story of Lennox Kilgour. He is the co-founding editor of ID13, & holds an MFA from the NEOMFA. His work has appeared or forthcoming in Brainchild, La Revista PingPong, The Oakland Review, Dunes Review, Poets.org, & more.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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C.L. White is a poet & journalist living in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Originally from Gold Hill, North Carolina, she holds a BA from UNC Chapel Hill & an MFA from UNC Greensboro. Her work has appeared in Oxford American, Mid-American Review, Chattahoochee Review, New Ohio Review, Best New Poets, & Mississippi Review, among other places.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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C.L. White is a poet & journalist living in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Originally from Gold Hill, North Carolina, she holds a BA from UNC Chapel Hill & an MFA from UNC Greensboro. Her work has appeared in Oxford American, Mid-American Review, Chattahoochee Review, New Ohio Review, Best New Poets, & Mississippi Review, among other places.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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s.g. maldonado-vélez is a Puerto Rican poet who is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Their chapbook no matter what you say spotify playlists are not mixtapes, with illustrations by Stephanie Francis, was a part of the Ghost City Press 2018 Micro-Chapbook Series. s.g. has been published in the Shade Journal, Ghost City Review, & Peach Mag. They can be found on Twitter @M00NP0ET as well as a number of other projects at sgmaldonadovelez.com. They strongly believe that we share hearts.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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s.g. maldonado-vélez is a Puerto Rican poet who is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Their chapbook no matter what you say spotify playlists are not mixtapes, with illustrations by Stephanie Francis, was a part of the Ghost City Press 2018 Micro-Chapbook Series. s.g. has been published in the Shade Journal, Ghost City Review, & Peach Mag. They can be found on Twitter @M00NP0ET as well as a number of other projects at sgmaldonadovelez.com. They strongly believe that we share hearts.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
Designed by Marielena Andre.
s.g. maldonado-vélez is a Puerto Rican poet who is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Their chapbook no matter what you say spotify playlists are not mixtapes, with illustrations by Stephanie Francis, was a part of the Ghost City Press 2018 Micro-Chapbook Series. s.g. has been published in the Shade Journal, Ghost City Review, & Peach Mag. They can be found on Twitter @M00NP0ET as well as a number of other projects at sgmaldonadovelez.com. They strongly believe that we share hearts.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
Designed by Marielena Andre.
Marianna Ariel hunts for moments when poetry has surfaced as a force in collective bodies. She can be found in off hours jumping from rock to rock in the Tucson mountains. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Arizona. Her work is forthcoming from Wend.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
Designed by Marielena Andre.
Marianna Ariel hunts for moments when poetry has surfaced as a force in collective bodies. She can be found in off hours jumping from rock to rock in the Tucson mountains. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Arizona. Her work is forthcoming from Wend.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
Designed by Marielena Andre.
Gillian Jerome was born & raised in Ottawa, Ontario. She is the author of a collection of poetry, Red Nest, which won the ReLit Award for Poetry in 2010. She co-edited an oral history project called Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside which won the City of Vancouver Book Award in 2009. She has taught creative writing at Douglas College & various high schools in Vancouver through Poetry in Voice. She lives in Vancouver, BC, where she teaches literature at the University of British Columbia.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Gillian Jerome was born & raised in Ottawa, Ontario. She is the author of a collection of poetry, Red Nest, which won the ReLit Award for Poetry in 2010. She co-edited an oral history project called Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside which won the City of Vancouver Book Award in 2009. She has taught creative writing at Douglas College & various high schools in Vancouver through Poetry in Voice. She lives in Vancouver, BC, where she teaches literature at the University of British Columbia.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
Designed by Marielena Andre.
Gillian Jerome was born & raised in Ottawa, Ontario. She is the author of a collection of poetry, Red Nest, which won the ReLit Award for Poetry in 2010. She co-edited an oral history project called Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside which won the City of Vancouver Book Award in 2009. She has taught creative writing at Douglas College & various high schools in Vancouver through Poetry in Voice. She lives in Vancouver, BC, where she teaches literature at the University of British Columbia.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Elizabeth Anne Mailo Paulson is a south end Seattle afakasi. She is a Mater’s student in health management at the University of Washington specializing in health equity. While an undergraduate at Western Washington University she majored in sociology with a double minor in psychology & creative writing.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Michael Demyan is a poet, performer, & visual artist. Find him at thetimedinosaur.com & IG @timedinosaur.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Anna Leigh Knowles is from Littleton, Colorado, & received an MFA from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Her work can be seen in Blackbird, Salt Hill (finalist for the Philip Booth Poetry Prize), Pleiades, Tin House Online, Indiana Review, The Missouri Review Online, storySouth, RHINO, Memorious, Poetry Northwest, Sou’wester, & Thrush Poetry Journal. She received scholarships from the Bear River Writer’s Conference, New Harmony Writer’s Workshop, the San Miguel de Allende Writers’ Conference, a Female Leadership Residency at Omega Institution, & two honorable mentions from the Academy of American Poets. She currently lives & teaches in Quito.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Anna Leigh Knowles is from Littleton, Colorado, & received an MFA from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Her work can be seen in Blackbird, Salt Hill (finalist for the Philip Booth Poetry Prize), Pleiades, Tin House Online, Indiana Review, The Missouri Review Online, storySouth, RHINO, Memorious, Poetry Northwest, Sou’wester, & Thrush Poetry Journal. She received scholarships from the Bear River Writer’s Conference, New Harmony Writer’s Workshop, the San Miguel de Allende Writers’ Conference, a Female Leadership Residency at Omega Institution, & two honorable mentions from the Academy of American Poets. She currently lives & teaches in Quito.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Nicholas Karavatos is a visiting lecturer in creative writing at Arab American University in Jenin, West Bank, Palestinian Authority. From 2006 to 2017, he was an assistant professor at American University of Sharjah in the UAE, & in 2018 an Ambassador’s Distinguished Scholar to Ethiopia. He taught inmates at Humboldt County Correctional Facility for College of the Redwoods in Eureka last year. David Meltzer wrote that his book NO ASYLUM (2009) “is an amazing collectanea of smart sharp political poetry … voiced with an impressive singularity.”
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Kristiana Kahakauwila is a hapa writer of kanaka maoli (Native Hawaiian), German, & Norwegian descent. Her first book, THIS IS PARADISE: STORIES (Hogarth 2013), takes as its heart the people & landscapes of contemporary Hawai’i & was named a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. A 2015-16 Fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, Kristiana is an Associate Professor at Western Washington University & faculty in the Low-Residency MFA at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Noor Ibn Najam is a poet & physicist whose work teases, challenges, breaks, & creates lingual rules & structures. Noor is a fellow of the Callaloo creative writing workshop & a graduate fellow of the Watering Hole as well as a recent resident at the Vermont Studio Center. Their poems have been published with the Academy of American Poets, The Rumpus, & others, & anthologized in Bettering American Poetry, Best New Poets, & Breakbeat Poets vol. 3: Halal If You Hear Me, an anthology of writings by Muslim gender minorities. Noor’s chapbook, PRAISE TO LESSER GODS OF LOVE, was published by Glass poetry press in 2019.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Noor Ibn Najam is a poet & physicist whose work teases, challenges, breaks, & creates lingual rules & structures. Noor is a fellow of the Callaloo creative writing workshop & a graduate fellow of the Watering Hole as well as a recent resident at the Vermont Studio Center. Their poems have been published with the Academy of American Poets, The Rumpus, & others, & anthologized in Bettering American Poetry, Best New Poets, & Breakbeat Poets vol. 3: Halal If You Hear Me, an anthology of writings by Muslim gender minorities. Noor’s chapbook, PRAISE TO LESSER GODS OF LOVE, was published by Glass poetry press in 2019.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
Designed by Marielena Andre.
Noor Ibn Najam is a poet & physicist whose work teases, challenges, breaks, & creates lingual rules & structures. Noor is a fellow of the Callaloo creative writing workshop & a graduate fellow of the Watering Hole as well as a recent resident at the Vermont Studio Center. Their poems have been published with the Academy of American Poets, The Rumpus, & others, & anthologized in Bettering American Poetry, Best New Poets, & Breakbeat Poets vol. 3: Halal If You Hear Me, an anthology of writings by Muslim gender minorities. Noor’s chapbook, PRAISE TO LESSER GODS OF LOVE, was published by Glass poetry press in 2019.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Alán Peláez López is an Afro-Indigenous writer, visual artist, & a poet-in-residence at the Museum of the African Diaspora. Their debut collection, Intergalactic Travels: poems from a fugitive alien, is forthcoming from The Operating System Press (2020). More at @MigrantScribble & www.alanpelaez.com.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Jake Bailey is a schizotypal experientialist with published or forthcoming work in Passages North, The American Journal of Poetry, Cream City Review, Constellations, Bear Review, The Laurel Review, & elsewhere. Jake received his MFA from Antioch University, Los Angeles, & lives in Aurora, Illinois, with his fiancée & their three dogs. Find him on Twitter & at saintjakeowitz.wordpress.com.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Nick Almeida’s fiction has appeared in Mid-American Review, Baltimore Review, The Southeast Review, & elsewhere. He’s a graduate of The Michener Center for Writers, where he served as Editor-In-Chief for Bat City Review.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Jeremy Radin is a poet, actor, & teacher. His poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Ploughshares, The Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, The Journal, MUZZLE, Passages North, Wildness, & elsewhere. He is the author of two collections of poetry, SLOW DANCE WITH SASQUATCH (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012) & DEAR SAL (not a cult press, 2017). He lives in Los Angeles where he once sat next to Carly Rae Jepsen in a restaurant. Follow him @germyradin.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Natanya Ann Pulley is a Diné writer & her clans are Kinyaa’áani (Towering House People) & Táchii’nii (Red Running into Water People). She’s published in Waxwing, Monkeybicycle, Entropy, & The Offing (among others). Natanya is the founding editor of Hairstreak Butterfly Review & teaches texts by Native American writers, Fiction Writing, & Experimental Forms at Colorado College. Her debut story collection WITH TEETH was published by New Rivers Press in October of 2019 & her writing can be found at natanyapulley.com.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Sara Mang’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Quarterly, Canadian Literature, The Indiana Review, Carve, & other journals. She was a Banff Centre Artist in Residence for the 2019 spring program, & received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts to attend the Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Sara was invited to attend the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Awards as an Emerging Literary Artist in Canada. She lives in Ottawa with her husband, three children, & rabbit.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Megan Merchant lives in the tall pines of Prescott, AZ, & is the author of three full-length poetry collections with Glass Lyre Press: GRAVEL GHOSTS (2016), THE DARK’S HUMMING (2015 Lyrebird Award Winner, 2017), GRIEF FLOWERS (2018), four chapbooks, & a children’s book, THESE WORDS I SHAPED FOR YOU (Philomel Books). Her latest book, BEFORE THE FEVERED SNOW came into the world in April 2020 with Stillhouse Press. She is an Editor at Pirene’s Fountain & The Comstock Review. You can learn more at meganmerchant.wix.com/poet.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Natalie Eleanor Patterson is a half-Cuban femme lesbian poet from suburban Georgia currently working on her BA in English & Creative Writing at Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC, & working as an editor. She has work featured or forthcoming in Incunabula, Neologism, Sinister Wisdom, & Collision. In 2018 she received the Katherine B. Rondthaler Award in Poetry from Salem College, & her poem “blink” received a Best of the Net nomination.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Leslie Jill Patterson’s prose has appeared in The Rumpus, Hotel Amerika, Gulf Coast, Baltimore Review, Colorado Review, Prime Number Magazine, & Brevity, among others. Her recent awards include a Soros Justice Fellowship, the Prime Number Magazine Prize for Fiction (judged by David Jauss), the Richard J. Margolis Award for Social Justice Writing, & a 2018 Pushcart Prize. Since 2009, she has worked as the case storyteller for public defenders representing indigent men charged with capital murder & facing the death penalty in Texas.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Isaac Espósto is a current MFA candidate in Poetry at the University of Arizona.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Isaac Espósto is a current MFA candidate in Poetry at the University of Arizona.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Julie Zigoris holds a PhD in Russian literature & has taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Stanford University, San Quentin prison, & the Jewish Community High School of the Bay. She was a writing contest winner in the YA categories at the 2019 San Francisco Writers’ Conference & the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference. A native Pennsylvanian, Julie now lives in San Francisco. Her first novel is a botanical-themed coming of age story about love & loss that features an eccentric Russian teacher.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Aldo Amparán is a queer poet from the sister cities of El Paso, TX, & Ciudad Juárez, CHIH, MX. He is a CantoMundo Fellow & finalist for the Alice James Award. His work appears in or is forthcoming from Gulf Coast, The Journal, Kenyon Review Online, Ninth Letter, Washington Square Review & elsewhere.
Jim Kourlas holds an MFA in creative writing from Roosevelt University in Chicago. He lives in Omaha with his wife & son.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Michael Mlekoday is a Midwesterner, a Capricorn, & the author of one collection of poems, THE DEAD EAT EVERYTHING (Kent State UP, 2014). They hold an MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington, & currently study plants & minds in American literature as a PhD candidate at the University of California, Davis. Their work has appeared in Ploughshares, Washington Square Review, Southern Indiana Review, The BreakBeat Poets, & other venues, & has been translated into Polish.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Geffrey Davis is the author of two poetry collections: NIGHT ANGLER (BOA Editions), winner of the 2018 James Laughlin Award, & REVISING THE STORM (BOA Editions), winner of the 2013 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. A recipient of fellowships from Bread Loaf, Cave Canem, the National Endowment for the Arts, & the Whiting Foundation, his work has appeared in Crazyhorse, New England Review, New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, & Ploughshares. Davis teaches at the University of Arkansas & with The Rainier Writing Workshop.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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torrin a. greathouse is a transgender cripple-punk & MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of boy/girl/ghost (TAR Chapbook Series, 2018) & assistant editor of The Shallow Ends. Their work is published/forthcoming in POETRY, The New York Times, & The Kenyon Review. She is the youngest ever winner of the Poetry Foundation’s J. Howard & Barbara M.J. Wood Prize.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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torrin a. greathouse is a transgender cripple-punk & MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of boy/girl/ghost (TAR Chapbook Series, 2018) & assistant editor of The Shallow Ends. Their work is published/forthcoming in POETRY, The New York Times, & The Kenyon Review. She is the youngest ever winner of the Poetry Foundation’s J. Howard & Barbara M.J. Wood Prize.
Natalie Serber is the author of three books: SHOUT HER LOVELY NAME, , a New York Times Notable Book of 2012, & a summer reading selection from O, the Oprah Magazine; COMMUNITY CHEST, a memoir; & her novel-in-stories, MUST BE NICE, which is currently seeking representation. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Zyzzyva, The Bellingham Review, & others. Essays & reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Rumpus, Salon, & others. Natalie is currently working on a memoir.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Jennifer Tseng is an award-winning poet & fiction writer. She & her sister, artist Amanda Tseng, collaborate on Instagram @tseng.sisters using the hashtag #sistersreadingsisters. Amanda’s images paired with Jennifer’s micro reviews celebrate books by women of color, queer women, & women in translation.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Jennifer Tseng is an award-winning poet & fiction writer. She & her sister, artist Amanda Tseng, collaborate on Instagram @tseng.sisters using the hashtag #sistersreadingsisters. Amanda’s images paired with Jennifer’s micro reviews celebrate books by women of color, queer women, & women in translation.
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From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
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Jennifer Tseng is an award-winning poet & fiction writer. She & her sister, artist Amanda Tseng, collaborate on Instagram @tseng.sisters using the hashtag #sistersreadingsisters. Amanda’s images paired with Jennifer’s micro reviews celebrate books by women of color, queer women, & women in translation.
Basic Vowels
ㅏ, short \a\ sound, as in ahjussi, an older married Korean man. Arriving in South Korea, often one’s first contact is with an ahjussi from the cadre of taxi drivers at the airport.
ㅓ, short \o\ sound, spelled with an “eo” in the Romanization of Hangeul, as in “Eodi?” — Where? “Eodi ga yo?” the driver asks: Where are you going? Then he’ll make eye contact with the passenger in the backseat via his rear-view mirror, take a good long look before asking “Eodi e seo wa sseo yo?” Where are you from? That’s his lead into the interrogation of the alien. As a foreigner in the ROK, expect a litany of questions, some personal (age, relationship status, nationality/age/appearance of your partner, occupations) before even being asked your name.
ㅗ, long \o\ sound, as in odaeng, the hotdog of the sea. Fish lips and assholes, various bits mixed with flour to form a cake. Boiled, folded, and served on a stick with a salty, spicy, seafood broth from street hawkers for 500 won. About 50 cents. With a firmness, suppleness, and elasticity to its texture, I imagine odaeng has a quality like a human face. I imagine eating one with Hannibal Lecter. He would savor his with a fine riesling. I would wash mine down with a Hite. Up in Seoul, all over the peninsula, they’re called eomuk. But here in Busan: odaeng. A Japanese word. Busan, port of entry for Japanese invasions to the mainland throughout the centuries. Despite a deep antipathy towards the Japanese, for many Koreans, their last stop in Busan is to the packaged odaeng souvenir shop at the domestic airport terminal or KTX train station. But it’s not the same as eating them fished from the brothy trough at sidewalk carts.
ㅜ, the \u\ sound like the word “too,” as in usan, meaning an umbrella. Coming from the West Coast, I’ve never been the kind of person to carry one. Natives like to boast of their ideal “four season” climate, but, at least on the coast of Gyeongsang Province, I argue that there’s five. The fifth is July. Hot, humid, tropical stickiness with intervaling typhoons. Miserable monsoon rains with gale force winds. Clear plastic and tangled metal from cheap convenience store-bought umbrellas litter the streets. I recycle mine and think, “Damn, I could’ve saved that 3,000 won for three odaeng and a beer.” An usan is useless in July.
ㅡ, Transliterated into “eu” making the \u\ sound in the word “put.” As in eumak, meaning music. Nowadays, I can talk with my students about BTS which is really the only way to get middle-schoolers to speak English in the classroom. How the group’s rapper Suga, after their sold-out shows at the Rose Bowl, was spotted at Dodger Stadium witnessing Hyun-jin Ryu toss a gem on the diamond. And how Jimin, now officially dubbed “The Prince of Busan” by mayoral decree, threw out the first pitch at Sajik Stadium during a weeklong celebration of all things BTS in his hometown. But when I washed up on these shores in 2009 to teach English for one year, I knew nothing of K-pop, K-dramas, the K-wave. Living in the countryside, outside of Busan, the only music I could relate to with my students was The Beatles. All of them knew the lyrics to “Let It Be.” Half of them could play it on piano. On a corner, a stone’s throw from my apartment, I posted in a deserted artillery bunker. Behind a myriad of concrete tetrapods and a cement wall, I drank some bottles of Buds alone where the Nakdong River meets the strait that separates Korea and Japan. Hunkering down there, the top three albums most played on my iPod were Wildflowers, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. When I ventured into the city, into Busan, hit songs from BIGBANG, Brown Eyed Girls, or 2PM blared from cell phone stores. Electronics stores blasted Katy Perry, Jason Mraz, Black-Eyed Peas, or Jay-Z. The beaches in Thailand burned me out quickly on Mraz, the Peas, and Jay-Z. But Katy Perry’s like 2Pac — California Love. Home.
ㅣ, long \e\ sound in most cases but short \i\ before an \n\, as in Indo. In reference to the country India. “You Indo?” was another common question people asked me back then. Some locals from the older generation had a hard time believing that I’m actually from California. It’s as if their only introduction to brown people is from the Subcontinent and their understanding of Chicanos means nachos. Say California and they envision Aryans on surfboards.
Basic Consonants
ㄹ, the hardest letter to pronounce. In Hangeul, it’s a combined “l/r” sound. Hence the reason the \l\ and \r\ sounds in English are so hard for Korean speakers. For my students, their tendency is to write “robsters are delicious” and “labbits are cute.” As an EFL teacher, it takes a lot of work on phonics and tongue-in-mouth positioning to get students to make a proper \l\ sound. On the other hand, as a nine year resident of Busan, it’s still hard for me to get that ㄹ sound right. For Anglophones, it’s either \l\ or \r\, not both for starting a word. My ㄹ is too much \r\. Still a work in progress.
ㅎ, the \h\ sound as in Han. Many have written about what is essential to understanding the culture, this feeling of being Korean, epitomized by Han, but it is also the most difficult facet to articulate. I leave it to my favorite television president, Jed Bartlet: “There’s a Korean word, Han. I looked it up. There is no literal English translation, it’s a state of mind, of soul really. A sadness. A sadness so deep no tears will come, and yet still, there’s hope.” Han is also the root of the word Hanguk, meaning the whole peninsula of Korea or South Korea. The base for Hangang, the river that flows from the Taebaek Mountains on the central coast of the East Sea flowing west through Seoul to the Yellow Sea to MacArthur’s landing at Incheon. The epicenter of the “Miracle on the Han River.” Han, the family name of Han Yu-rim, a co-teacher at the first school where I taught English. My first girlfriend in Busan. My first Korean teacher.
ㅁ, \m\ for Miguk. The \m\ in America. Miguk means “America.” “The beautiful country,” she said. Expatriation should not be confused with being unpatriotic; I’m desperately homesick for the country that I love. Along with my family, redwood groves, the Sierra Nevadas, and homegrown heirloom summer tomatoes, I also miss the ideals, values, and diversity that once formed the bedrock of America’s strength, beauty, and democracy. Democracy now threatened at an alarming rate of erosion of such foundations.
ㅅ, \s\ for saram, as in Miguk saram. For many years I thought that Miguk saram literally translated to “America love.” Until my wife, Susanna, a New Yorker of Scotch-Irish descent, corrected me. “Saram means person. Miguk saram means American. You are an American person. Sarang means love,” she said.
ㅊ, the \ch\ sound as in cheon. One thousand. Cheon won, the ₩1000 bill. A dollar. A buck. Colloquially among foreigners in Korea, a cheon-er. “I bet you a cheon-er on it, Sus.” I just looked up saram and sarang. “Dammit, Babe, I owe you a cheon-er.”
ㅈ, \j\ as in Juche, according to Busanite professor B.R. Myers, author of The Cleanest Race and The Juche Myth, the word Juche is usually left untranslated or understood as “self-reliance.” Juche. The official state doctrine of North Korea. Also the doctrine of the Trump administration but rebranded as “America First.”
ㄷ, makes the \d\ sound as in Daehan Minguk, since 1919, the official name of the Republic of Korea established by the exiled provisional government after the March First Independence Movement. It’s also an infectious chant, “DAE-HAN min-GUK!” followed by a Clap-Clap, clap-clap-clap of the hands or with red inflatable thundersticks at ROK’s national team soccer matches. “DAE-HAN min-GUK!” I hear it as strong and clear as “U-S-A! U-S-A!” especially when watching a World Cup game at midnight in a bar with a hundred countrymen or at a 7am movie screen-size viewing on Haeundae Beach with the throngs of thousands.
ㅌ, \t\ as in Taegukgi. The South Korean flag. A white field with a red and blue yin-yang design in the center surrounded by four black trigrams. Clockwise from the top left, they represent heaven, moon, sun, and Earth. The four seasons and the four cardinal directions together combining justice, wisdom, fruition, and vitality. Growing up as a brown boy in an all-white elementary school, I pledged allegiance to the flag like everyone else but always felt torn between the Stars and Stripes and the Bandera de Mexico when these two sides were pitted against each other. Now, having made Korea my home for nine years, the Taegukgi also elicits a real personal significance. And without USA as my main rooting interest for 2018’s World Cup but seeing the ROK meeting Mexico in group play, my loyalties were again conflicted. El Tri or the Red Devils this year? Honestly, I was hoping for a draw.
ㄱ, when this is the first and/or last letter of a word it makes a \k\ sound. In the middle, however, it’s more of a hard \g\. One of the first words I learned: kachihada, meaning join in. Or simply kachi. Together. Out alone when a local sees a foreigner, they’ll call the visitor over to join their party, share their meal, “try this one,” or join their picnic. It was my first window to a different culture that I found endearing. But there’s one table, as a foreigner, you should never join or intervene — a group of belligerent older people. I’ve seen men push women down on the street. I’ve seen an older man pull his adult daughter’s hair and rough her up in a restaurant in front of guests. Everyone remains quiet. Looks down. Pushes some tofu and kimchi around their plate with their chopsticks. Even Korean countrymen just ignore it. My wife sees that I can’t stand it. I can’t take it. Someone, anyone, needs to intervene. I need to intervene. Then she reminds me that, being a foreigner, I will be the one that is in the wrong. I will be the one who is prosecuted. I learned long ago that there are two judicial systems here: one for Koreans and one for foreigners. And if the two parties are entangled, an imbroglio brought to the police station or to court, the natives win. It’s that simple.
ㅋ, an even stronger \k\ as in the word “king.” As in kong meaning “bean.” Sometimes I wish the ahjussi taxi driver would call me a kong saram instead of an Indo saram. It’s alright, ahjussi, I don’t take offense when you assume I’m Indian. However, kong saram would be more accurate. I’m a bean person — a beaner. I’m cool with that these days.
ㄴ, the \n\ sound as in Nakdong River, the longest river in Korea. It flows 525 km south from the Taebaek Range down into Busan with a source that is still debatable. Children are told the story of a miserly man and a magic pile of poo that turned into a pond in Taebaek City becoming the Nakdong’s origin. On the way up to Taebaek Mountain, on the side of the road, there’s a trickling spring in the rocks and grass marked by a sign that claims to be the source of the Nakdong River. Now hydrologists purport that a natural spring even higher up on the mountain should be considered the river’s true source. Finding the real source is like learning Hangeul. I have a half-dozen language books and no two are alike. The Romanization and pronunciation of Hangeul are never consistent. Like the river, language is always in motion and a source of contention.
ㅍ, the \p\ sound for podoju. Podoju meaning wine. Before I moved to Busan, I was a waiter and sommelier at a farm-to-fork restaurant in Sacramento. It was a job that precipitated my move to Korea; I needed a divorce from my drug-addled, incestuous family (otherwise known as the Midtown restaurant scene). Further, I thought that this distance would palliate my own issues with addiction and the conflicts with my family by blood. Though I tried to fully retire from the industry, sometimes expat restaurateurs sought out my advice for special events. On one such occasion, I was solicited to choose the pairings for a one-night only four-course dinner. After the planning and menu meetings with the owner, I was led to believe that I just needed to procure the wines and mule them over. Instead, I got hoodwinked into running the front-of-the-house by myself. A server nightmare come to life. Except, had I not stepped up to the plate, I would’ve never met Susanna.
ㅇ, when this letter is in the middle or end of a word, it makes an \ng\ sound as in byeong-won meaning hospital. 좋은강안병원, Good Gang-an Hospital. The hospital where I found myself after a few days, after finally coming to (so I was told), where I learned I had either blacked out on or was pushed down a flight of stairs. The hospital where I realized I was missing a third of my cranium. However, when the ㅇ letter is in the first position, it’s a silent placeholder. As in 이 which transforms into the family name “Lee.” Like my doctor: Dr. Lee. It was Dr. Lee who performed the life-saving craniectomy at Good Gang-an Hospital. He removed a part of my skull and put it in the freezer there. Then, six months later, he reattached my missing piece. After three weeks in the hospital, two major surgeries, and several personal visits with Dr. Lee, my total bill: ₩5,500,000. About five thousand US dollars.
ㅂ, the \b\ sound as in Busan. Busan, endearingly referred to as “The Bu.” The job recruiter who first brought me here to teach English billed Busan as the “Bay Area of the ROK” with its beaches, bridges, and peaks. Ok, it’s not The City as it is to San Franciscans, but she wasn’t lying either. Before the Silicon Valley dot com invasion, from the days of forty-niners to the 20th century transplants who settled along the shores of the Golden Gate: like San Francisco was, Busan is a city of second chances. It’s a place where one can reinvent oneself, find one’s self, be given a second lease on life. It’s the ROK’s second-city, but it will always be number one in my book.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
Designed by Marielena Andre.
Anthony Huerta Velasquez is a native of California’s San Joaquin Valley who recently repatriated after spending the last decade in Busan, South Korea. He was a food & wine contributor to various English-language magazines in the ROK. His creative nonfiction essays have appeared in the South Dakota Review, Concho River Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Past Ten, & The Offbeat. He now calls the Finger Lakes region of New York home.
From Hunger Mountain Issue 24: Patterns, which you can purchase here.
Designed by Marielena Andre.
tanner menard is a Q2S, non-binary poet & composer whose work embodies their Creole/Acadian/NDN lineage. Poems are their method of survival, a linguistic medicine of ambiguity which is certain that love prevails. As a composer of experimental music, menard has been published & anthologized internationally on labels such as Rural Colours, Tokyo Droning, Install, Slow Flow Rec, H.L.M., Archaic Horizon, Kafua Records, & Milieu Music. Their recent album/chapbook collaboration with Andrew Weathers was published on Full Spectrum Records. menard’s poetry & essays have been published in The Squawkback, Rabbit & Rose, Cloudthroat, The University of Arizona Poetry Center Blog, Red Ink Magazine, The Mockingheart Review, American Indian Culture and Research Journal at UCLA, & The Wire Magazine. menard is a member of the Atakapa-Ishak Nation of Southwest Louisiana & Southeast Texas & resides in Tempe, AZ.
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