The War Still Within: Poems of the Korean Diaspora by Tanya Ko Hong

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By Charles Rammelkamp

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Tanya Ko Hong’s heartbreaking collection of poems is all about bearing witness and the need to testify to a truth against all the forces of silence from both without and within that try to suppress its expression. This truth is all about treachery and betrayal. Interestingly, it is in the very last stanza of the final poem in the book, “At Tara Station in Dublin,” where we find an invitation to speak.  The speaker in the poem finds herself stranded in an Irish pub drinking coffee when she is approached by a “sweet-looking girl” who asks,

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not in Gaelic but in fluent English:

“Love! I am a hungry angel of the street.

Get me a McDonald’s hamburger and a cup of coffee,

and tell me a story of your star,

the land where you came from, please.”