Aloha, Korea!

Greetings to all my fellow Korean adoptees who are traveling to Seoul for the IKAA Gathering! I hope to meet those of you whom I’ve become acquainted with online, as well as those who have visited my blog but have not yet introduced yourselves.

Please don’t be shy. I may look confused, bewildered and — oh yes, Korean, but underneath it all, I’m really just like you: one of 500+ adoptees wandering around the mothership, hoping to stumble onto kimbap, soju and e-mail access. So if you happen to cross paths with me, please say hello and tell me you’re, you know, kim72 or seoul_superstar or (fill in with relevant handle).

In a matter of mere days, I will be flying to Incheon International Airport! *panicking* First it’s QT with the 가족. Following, I will be in Seoul during the week of the Gathering, and then venturing around the country and touching base back in the city sporadically for a couple of weeks with various friends and, toward the end, the yobo.

During the IKAA Gathering, I hope you will have mercy on me and come help fill up a few seats at the session I’ll be participating in on Thursday, Aug. 2, at 1:30 p.m. (the first day of workshops @ Dongguk University), regarding Korean adoptee online communities. I can’t promise that I’ll have anything terribly witty or interesting to say, but who knows? If I am tired and dehydrated enough, I just might say something mildly stupid to laugh at. Come find out!

Happy travels, and I’ll see you in 한국!

Harry Potter? Bah! Read this instead! (OK, maybe in addition …)

(This is something that just couldn’t go unblogged on TTR, extended hiatus or not.)

Read any good books lately?

Do yourselves a favor and make this one your next purchase.

I just finished Lee Herrick’s “This Many Miles From Desire,” and I can assure you that every poem is beautiful and worth reading again and again.

I am not easily impressed by poetry — perhaps because there are so many hacks out there who try much too hard and end up murdering their efforts with insincerity and pretense. Lee is not one of those people! His poems are organic and unrushed, and spoken as if he woke up from a dream and uncorked his memory … or as though he just returned home from a trip across three continents and unpacked words instead of souvenirs.

Or words as souvenirs.

Although I’ve read it from cover to cover, Lee’s book will stay on my nightstand for a good while.

Addendum (9/10/07): I made a horrendous oversight in hanging up my blog before I added another hearty recommendation for an equally fantastic poet’s equally fantastic book. Do be sure to order Bryan Thao Worra’s “On the Other Side of the Eye.” I’m at a loss for an appropriate description, but it’s a carnival of word flavors!

Be prepared to be swept off to another realm.

And if you see Bryan while you’re there, please tell him I said “iH.”