Civil Bound by Mi Kim is a collection of poetry that navigates the constraints of living in a colonized space from the perspective of a voice that deeply cares while closely experiencing the traumas that accompany historic oppression.
Reviewed by Kaitlyn L. Palmer
Author of eight published works, Myung Mi Kim accelerates an exploration of civil agreements that are upheld through oppressive practices. Through a series of both visceral and concrete images, Kim recounts a history that spans from Korea and extends beyond the borders. Civil Bound is saturated in experiences that provoke sound, taste, smell, and touch. A journey that is painful, yet courageous in outcome. Kim allows space for a penetrating vulnerability to take place as she has presented a collection that teaches and grounds the reader.
The opening of Myung Mi Kim’s collection, Civil Bound is action packed and entangled in violence and sound, the ocean holding up a snarling dog, is an example of a sound that magnifies the audience’s experience. Kim’s work focuses significantly on movement and place. Tackling the reality of servitude and slavery, there are multiple dimensions to each line.
“Platform of moveable objects / for live spectacle / a link of people sorted – size, strength, age / hemisphere lust.” Reminiscent of the conditions leading or following a civil war, speaking intentional to colonization and the audacity of others to claim another’s land for theirs. Kim concludes with charmed forgery.
Kim’s language is poetic, fitting of the form illustrated. There is a personal experience the reader encounters as Kim tells the story of colonization, migration, labor, and social contracts. “Glowing cults / scoured foundation / pledge to asunder.” There is a motion that depicts an uninvited invader, the entering of a people whose home this land is not.
Kim consciously uses diverse perspectives. “1 pair of gloves / 3yds calico / whiskey / crackers / watch guard / 1 deck of cards.” Kim’s lines are bare, heightening the vulnerability experienced by the reader. Skillfully, the speaker does not beg for the attention deserved, rather, it announces itself with the poignancy of the content, as well as the manner in which it is articulated to the reader.
Kim is unafraid to provide the reader with heavy, yet precise doses of the reality that the characters in Civil Bond endure. “If a species cannot find a sonic niche of its own, it will not survive.” Traveling to, “rifles at the ready, aimed / next to / distribution of ground corn.” There is a commonality that is striking about the characters within each piece. A thread that appears to bond them together.
The idea of grief plays both conventionally as well as unconventionally in addition to an indirect and direct idea relating to the price of citizenship, specifically, American citizenship. The reader is left with a feeling of having traveled, discovered, and earned a right to civility.
Publisher Info:
Published by Omnidawn Publishing in October 2019
ISBN: 978-63242-071-7
93 pages