Letter to Cathy Park Hong

 Dear Cathy Park Hong,

As I read your poem titled Ballad of Infanticide I was awed by your masterful use of imagery and your unique writing style. While I don’t think I can fully understand all that you wished to convey through your poem, I do feel like I was able to appreciate your mastery of language and emotions. Your seemingly short and insignificant poem has many layers of complexities within. Like many of your other works, you highlight cultural differences with underlying themes of prejudice and discrimination. However, unlike many other authors, you don’t refer to the world as “this and that.” Instead, you show us the world through the eyes of your characters to show the reader how they perceive the world and what you want the reader to see and appreciate from your poems. Ballad of Infanticide in addition to many of your other works takes the reader by the hand to highlight what you wish to show while still maintaining the freedom of differing opinions and viewpoints. As a thank you for sharing your words with the world, I’d like to give you a few of mine that attempt to mimic your writing style:

Fluttering through the air, the bee finds a flower

that has lost a petal.

As the bee picks up the sweetened nectar,

the flower shares its fertile pollen

in an attempt to leech off the success of the bee.

Unknowingly the bee flies from flower to flower–

The flower cries: I shall never see my children again.

But at least they will live.