Joan Kwon Glass
Joan Kwon Glass (she/her) is author of “How to Make Pancakes For a Dead Boy” (Harbor Editions, 2022), was a finalist for the 2021 Subnivean Award, a finalist for the 2021 Lumiere Review Writing Contest, & serves as Poet Laureate (2021-2025) for the city of Milford, CT. She is a biracial Korean American who grew up in Michigan & South Korea. Joan holds a B.A. & M.A.T. from Smith College, is Poetry Co-Editor for West Trestle Review & Poetry Reader for Rogue Agent. Her poems have recently been published or are forthcoming in Korean Quarterly, the Subnivean, trampset, Rust & Moth, Rattle, Mom Egg, SWWIM, Honey Literary, Lumiere Review, Lantern Review, Literary Mama, Barnstorm & others. Since 2018, Joan has been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize. She tweets @joanpglass & you may read her previously published work at www.joankwonglass.com.
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Pantoum for My Father
In his goodbye note, my father blamed his parents for his inability to love us.
At his bump shop on 14 Mile Road, he lowered cars on a platform.
I loved to watch their steel bodies, dented or cracked, disappear,
the shaft where the platform had been.
At his bump shop on 14 Mile Road, he lowered cars on a platform.
Sometimes I’d stand too close to the edge and hover over
the shaft where the platform had been.
I imagined him pulling me back to safety.
Sometimes I’d stand too close to the edge and hover over.
I stood at precipices and dared gravity to take me.
I imagined him pulling me back to safety.
My father and I are not unalike.
I stood at precipices and dared gravity to take me.
I’ve met a version of myself who doesn’t need anyone.
My father and I are not unalike.
In his goodbye note, my father blamed his parents for his inability to love us.
At his bump shop on 14 Mile Road, he lowered cars on a platform.
I loved to watch their steel bodies, dented or cracked, disappear,
the shaft where the platform had been.
At his bump shop on 14 Mile Road, he lowered cars on a platform.
Sometimes I’d stand too close to the edge and hover over
the shaft where the platform had been.
I imagined him pulling me back to safety.
Sometimes I’d stand too close to the edge and hover over.
I stood at precipices and dared gravity to take me.
I imagined him pulling me back to safety.
My father and I are not unalike.
I stood at precipices and dared gravity to take me.
I’ve met a version of myself who doesn’t need anyone.
My father and I are not unalike.
In his goodbye note, my father blamed his parents for his inability to love us.
Commentary
Joan on “Pantoum for My Father”:
I generally write free-verse, narrative or confessional poems. This is the only pantoum I've ever written, and I found that the formal structure helped me to write a poem that I would have struggled to write otherwise due to the emotional labor it required.
Louise Gluck said, "We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory." I've thought about memory so much as a writer, and how it clouds or colors the way that I see the world, others and myself. When a child experiences abandonment or neglect, how does this shape their lives? Of course the answer is different for everyone. In my case, I find myself now as a 44 year old woman, reconciling with my own pain, reflecting not just on the ways that I survived my own traumas and how they have affected me, but also on the versions of myself I catch glimpses of in those who hurt me so terribly. When I've lingered on the precipice, am I not in some way like my father who could not beat his demons, could not manage the life and family he'd created as an adult? And if the demons in you are not so different from the demons in me, doesn't that open the door for me to also meet my better angels?
Editor in Chief Christine Taylor on “Pantoum for My Father”:
One of the notions in Joan’s poem that resonated with me is that of seeing the self in others, particularly close family members. My father died when I was ten years old, and now living in the house that he bought for our family so many years ago, I often wonder if the footsteps in which I am walking are mine or his. I learned a lot about my father after he died, some of the vices that I now have too: “My father and I are not unalike.” And I’m still wrestling with whether or not that’s okay.
I generally write free-verse, narrative or confessional poems. This is the only pantoum I've ever written, and I found that the formal structure helped me to write a poem that I would have struggled to write otherwise due to the emotional labor it required.
Louise Gluck said, "We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory." I've thought about memory so much as a writer, and how it clouds or colors the way that I see the world, others and myself. When a child experiences abandonment or neglect, how does this shape their lives? Of course the answer is different for everyone. In my case, I find myself now as a 44 year old woman, reconciling with my own pain, reflecting not just on the ways that I survived my own traumas and how they have affected me, but also on the versions of myself I catch glimpses of in those who hurt me so terribly. When I've lingered on the precipice, am I not in some way like my father who could not beat his demons, could not manage the life and family he'd created as an adult? And if the demons in you are not so different from the demons in me, doesn't that open the door for me to also meet my better angels?
Editor in Chief Christine Taylor on “Pantoum for My Father”:
One of the notions in Joan’s poem that resonated with me is that of seeing the self in others, particularly close family members. My father died when I was ten years old, and now living in the house that he bought for our family so many years ago, I often wonder if the footsteps in which I am walking are mine or his. I learned a lot about my father after he died, some of the vices that I now have too: “My father and I are not unalike.” And I’m still wrestling with whether or not that’s okay.