Poet sings of family, love

Kang In-suk's first poetry book, New Zealand, is beautiful from the front cover to the back, portraying a young woman facing a distant island in the blue ocean. The art work on the cover represents the 60 poems inside the book ― a sister's love and prayers for her younger brother's new life in New Zealand. She herself is an immigrant to the United States long ago. She is a professional career woman in Northern Virginia, a beloved wife and mother of two children. More than that, she is a poetess who attempts to make her everyday life poetry.

"New Zealand" is here translated into English from Korean.

New Zealand A small island Next to Australia In the South Pacific: Fresh, clean, crisp air A beautiful environment-- A relationship between human and nature exists On the island. My brother, How happy are you on this isolated island? I wish you the very best every day: “There are always green forests Wherever you go,” As our father said. Every night I dream of sailing to your island.

She made her literary debut via Munhak gwa Euisik (Literature and Consciousness Quarterly) in 2005. Since then, she has produced poems on family and nature in Korea and the United States, and the "homesick: and nostalgia of her childhood and adolescent days in North Cholla Province.

Her poems are touching and readable. A great majority are personal, but some are social and political. One poem, "A Sad Day," is of her thoughts at the Virginia Tech massacre by a mentally ill Korean student years ago.

Her poems, "Sister-in-law" and "Sounds I miss (from Korea)" are poems to be translated into English in the future. All in all, her poems are the reflections of a Korean immigrant's life in the United States.