6 Quotes by Seo-Young Chu

Powered by the literalization of lyric personification into narrative event, a humanoid robot may wake up fully sentient and human (only to decide, preferring reverie, to fall asleep again).

I, Stereotype: Detained in the Uncanny Valley

Originally the sonnet was a site of sexual violence. Male poets were rewarded for celebrating the women they hunted. They used the sonnet form and an instrument called the ‘blazon’ to convert their prey into exquisite English artifacts. Our anthologies still include holograms of jewel-like eyes, porcelain skin, ruby lips, hair like gold, and so on.

A LITTLE SONG AND A RECEIPT.Doe: a deer, a female deer—Often chased by sonneteers of old.Caught, and killed, and bathed in fear,turned to human blazons to be sold—Eyes—$twin models of the stars.Skin—$fine tissue wrought from gold.Lips—$your favorite kind of flower.Sex—$a secret still untold/ a Silk Road to unfold/ a thing for you to mold/ a source by you controlled.Total: $—————.—

Language spoken by parents to each other: fluent Korean. I grew up hearing marriage as a foreign language—literally and figuratively. I grew up hearing the sound of Korean as a language of Korean-bound han syndrome, disappointment, fury, resignation, the sense of being trapped forever, resentment, guilt. Every other word: a door slammed.

Sometimes I dream that his rare book collectionIs made of all “his” women turned to fiction.