The symmetry of fish

Su Cho

Book - 2022

"From National Poetry Series winner Su Cho, chosen by Paige Lewis, a debut poetry collection about immigration, memory, and a family's lexicon. Language and lore are at the core of The Symmetry of Fish, a moving debut about coming-of-age in the middle of nowhere. With striking and tender insight, it seeks to give voice to those who have been denied their stories, and examines the way phrases and narratives are passed down through immigrant families-not diluted over time, but distilled into potency over generations. In this way, a family's language is not lost but continuously remade, hitched to new associations, and capable of blooming anew, with the power to cut across space and time to unearth buried memories. The poems in ...The Symmetry of Fish insist that language is first and foremost a bodily act; even if our minds can't recall a word or a definition, if we trust our mouths, expression will find us-though never quite in the forms we expect"--

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Subjects
Genres
Poetry
Published
New York : Penguin Books [2022]
Language
English
Main Author
Su Cho (author)
Physical Description
68 pages ; 23 cm
ISBN
9780143137252
  • How to Say Water
  • I..
  • $$$: (n) thorn, splinter, fish bone
  • The Old Man in White Has Given My Mother a Ripe Persimmon Again
  • Tonight I Discover Archipelagoes
  • Hello, My Parents Don't Speak English Well, How Can I Help You?
  • She Arose
  • Diorama This
  • Winters in Queens
  • Abecedarian for ESL in West Lafayette, Indiana
  • $$$: (v) to give death; (n) chestnut, night
  • After the Burial, the Dead Take Everything That Burns
  • Gratitude for His Hands
  • According to My Father, Peaches Ward Off Spirits
  • We Are All Dying, Slowly
  • II..
  • Through the Fissures
  • A Little Cheonyeo Gwishin Appears in My Kitchen
  • Purlicues
  • Tangerine Trees and Little Bags of Sugar
  • Bowl of Fat
  • Urgent Care
  • The Sun and Moon Began with a Mother Working
  • Fermented
  • $$$ or $$$: Rice or Flesh
  • My Bed Shakes and I Assume the Ghosts Are Finally Getting Me
  • Ode to Putting in the Window AC Unit
  • At an Apple Orchard in Door County, Wisconsin
  • Aubade with Metal Spoon
  • The Cheonyeo Gwishin Marries Me
  • Mug Club
  • Ergonomics
  • Open Diskectomy
  • The Symmetry of Fish
  • III..
  • Remember This When You're Hungry
  • Waiting in Line at the Outlet Mall
  • $$$: (n) wisdom teeth
  • A Cheonyeo Gwishin Tells Me a Story
  • Peach Blossoms
  • Ode to the New York Heat Wave
  • $$$: (n) Garden Balsams, Touch-Me-Nots
  • False Teeth
  • Ode to Wanting to Run Over Other People's Children in the Church Parking Lot
  • In the Middle of the Highway, There Is a Garden
  • Loop Spurs
  • New Year's on Rockland Avenue
  • My Mother on the Lava Rocks of Jejudo
  • Another Door to the Moon
  • Acknowledgments
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The vivid, folkloric debut from Cho recounts her experience growing up in a Korean immigrant family in Indiana. Advice from her mother is stamped with striking imagery, as in the opening lines of the title poem: "The head of the fish thuds/ into the kitchen sink// with a splash of lettuced water./ She says, Not this. Don't// marry the head or anyone/ too cunning." In "Hello, My Parents Don't Speak English Well, How Can I Help You," Cho captures the complexity of being an immigrant child, feeling both ashamed and angry about that shame: "Once I called her stupid for/ Packing my field trip lunch with/ Quick sesame rice balls even though that's what I/ Requested.... The truth is, I hated my friends/ Upset over the sesame smell." The lessons and culinary efforts of women--mothers, grandmothers, ancestors--is a running theme, taking on a surreal tone in "A Little Cheonyeo Gwishin Appears in My Kitchen," in which Cho cooks with a chaotic spirit from Korean lore: "She opens/ the tofu, smashes/ the watery curd with her/ foot, and soaks// a package of dried kelp/ in the trash." Infused with bittersweet nostalgia, Cho's arresting work captures the full emotional spectrum in poems that are sometimes charming, sometimes haunting, but always memorable. (Oct)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Cho debuts with a "National Poetry" series winner that paints vivid scenes from the Midwest (where she was raised) and New York while examining language, tradition, family, and relationships. It's a collection abundant with emotion and a wonderful tenderness, giving readers the opportunity to hear the stories of her Korean ancestors and her experiences as a child of immigrant parents. Motifs of fish, fruit, and ghosts are interwoven throughout the poems: "If you can't peel the skin/ of a pear in a thin spiral with a fruit knife/ you can't get married. You can have/ nothing if you can't offer a man fruit." This is one example of a phrase that is repeated in multiple poems, as the speaker recalls advice given by maternal figures. There are often elements of humor here, as in "Ode to Putting in the Window AC Unit": "We open the screenless window and bat our arms/ to clear the buffet of lake gnats, flies, and knots/ of insect carcasses beaded on the spiderweb/ that has been growing for over a year." VERDICT These resonant poems of heritage and self are recommended for all collections.--Sarah Michaelis

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