Description
Paper Pavilion captures the theme of transnational adoption and a powerful seach for a personal history and identity from Korea to America. Jennifer Kwon Dobbs utilizes both traditional and experimental forms, including Korean sijo to explore this passionate quest for identity.
Reviews
“In Paper Pavilion, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, ‘child of mixed up rivers,’ captures in stunning form, the powerful search for her own personal history, and constructs an entryway into a mythic past, a place we all in some way yearn for. In this passionate quest for identity, rooted in Korea: ‘.. my lost castles, land of my birth and longing,’ the poet finds her way home and, through language, both fresh and startling, the reader becomes her astonished companion.. Born of exile and homecoming, of elegant sensibility and intelligence, these are poems not to be forgotten. Hers is an ambitious and brilliant new voice. ” —Genie Zeiger “Jennifer Kwon Dobbs writes a harrowing poem of very precise measurements or hidden operations in lyric wheelwork, but if you’re thinking of clocks and time, please, rather think of space. Think of Wallace Stevens worrying about the traversing of the void, yes, folded and jeweled like time. Her brilliant distant sources in these poems freshen and give pleasure like a daily meal. This is a marvelous book.” --Norman Dubie “Jennifer Kwon Dobbs is an astonishing poet. The poetry in Paper Pavillion is by turns lyric and incisive, operatic and sweeping. There is a resonant passion that fills every page. With this heart-breaking and exhilerating debut, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs has established herself as one of the most compelling and important poets of her generation.” -- David St. John
Accolades
Jennifer Kwon Dobbs holds degrees from Oklahoma State University and the University of Pittsburgh. She is presently an Edwin Mem fellow and in the PhD program, in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. Her poetry has appeared in Crazyhorse, Cimarron Review, Cream City Review, Tulane Review, and in the anthologies: Echoes Upon Echoes: New Korean American Writings, and Contemporary Voices form the Eastern World.