The purpose of this study is to explore the characteristics and meaning of the Korean American women's poetry in the New York area. New York area poetry has been led by women poets from the very beginning of the paragraph. In this paper, I set the sta ...
The purpose of this study is to explore the characteristics and meaning of the Korean American women's poetry in the New York area. New York area poetry has been led by women poets from the very beginning of the paragraph. In this paper, I set the starting point of "New York Literature" in 1991, and classified the poets who were active in the first generation as the women poets who started their activities in the past and as poets who have been active since then. The characteristics and meaning of women's poetry were examined by focusing on Kwak Sang-hee, Kim Jung-ki, Kim Song-hee, and Choi Jeong-ja in the first generation, Jo Seong-Ja, and Shin Ji-hye in the second generation. On the one hand, they share a common sentiment of immigrant women, while on the other they show a slightly different world recognition and identity for each poet.
The characteristic of women's poetry is that, first of all, it confronts the culture shock facing the unfamiliar space and the fear that comes from it, rather than confronts it in the room and shows the experience like the prisoner. This is related to the position of women as housewives and social minorities. As the life of foreign country is lonely and painful, the hometown is the object of longing, a refuge, and a more ideal space than reality. Most of the first generation women poets who migrated before the 1990s are suffering from the process of adaptation and settlement, revealing the nostalgia for their hometowns in proportion to them. Besides, most women poets reveal their identity as a mother and a poet. When family members come to America together and take part in the difficult process of adjustment and settlement, they can see a great attachment to the family. In addition, women 's poetry has a very strong identity as a poet. This identity gives a reminder of the self-respect and existence consciousness of female poets. It can be seen that the first generation of female poets reveal their identity as a poet compared to the second generation of poets, such as self-identification to overcome a difficult immigrant life.
Kim Jung-ki and Choi Jeong-ja depict the image of female immigrants. There are works in Kim Jeong-ki's poem that emphasize the harshness of labor and the appearance of various immigrant women. Especially, Choi Jeong-ja puts the experience at the sewing factory in "To Seoul". In the case of male poets, there are not many works dealing with the realities and problems of female immigrants in the works of female poets. The reason why they do not pay much attention to the appearance of other immigrant women is that they live mainly in Korean-American society and work in a very limited space. It is not surprising that there are not many opportunities to see realistic images properly. Also, it seems that most women poets emphasize individual lyricism and literary achievement rather than concern for social problems
On the other hand, women's poetry shows a change of identity. In the early days of immigration, the strong expression of the stranger consciousness that can not belong here and anywhere can be seen as confirming positive self-identity by transforming into a nomadic thought that freely crosses here and there. This open and positive identity is more prominent in the second generation of female poets, Jo Seong-ja and Shin Ji-hye.
Although the content of the aspects of female poets differ slightly depending on the motive and timing of immigration, in the early days of immigration, mainly the nostalgia for their hometowns and the consciousness of the stranger have become a poetic theme. And as time passes it shows consciousness as a settler who regards America as his second hometown. In the 1990s, most of the first-generation women poets have been harsh with the process of adaptation and settlement, revealing the nostalgia for their hometowns. Jo Seong-Ja and Shin Ji-hye, who are doing their work in the 1990s, are adapting easily to American society compared to their predecessors. They also show the open vision and identity beyond the nation and bloodline on the issue of world recognition and identity. In particular, Shin Ji-hye is building his own a view of the world based on the unique perception of the world that wants to banish all boundaries. If the first generation of immigrant women have been leading the flow of New York poetry , it is significant that future generations of women's poetry can be used as a measure of future change and development of New York poetry.
Considering that most of the women poets belonging to the first generation of immigrants come to the point when they should be able to summarize and evaluate their works at the great age and considerable number of works of second generation female poets are accumulated, It will be very meaningful. It will contribute to the understanding of the Korean American poetry and to the description of the history of the Korean American poetry. In addition, the problems in the works of female poets can be used as an indicator to understand migrants who are spreading globally in recent years, especially migrant women. In this regard, I hope that it can be used as basic research data of social education through linkage with other disciplines such as social science.