Any autobiographical reveal, especially if it was racial or sexual, was a sign of weakness.
-- Cathy Park Hong (United)

Importance: This quote expresses Hong's belief in her early career that owning her personal narrative and racial identity was an impediment to her artistic validity. Throughout her academic experience, Hong attempted to dissociate from her ethnicity, believing that writing into and from within this crucial facet of her personhood, would limit the ways in which her work was interpreted. Appearing at the start of the collection, the line speaks to the collection's overarching work to deconstruct this notion, to find power in conveying and writing about one's race and sex.

I'm not ready to heal...
-- Cathy Park Hong (United)

Importance: Hong says this an elderly Jewish woman after one of her readings. When the woman tells Hong that people need poetry to heal, Hong realizes her reason for only reading essayistic work in public. Still working to confront the truth and...