Angela E J Koh » Autobiographical Sketch

Stealing Grandma

angelaejkoh — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 08:38:55 +0000

My grandma was born in Korea, raised in Japan so her name: Kumiko. Though, only I knew that. I gave her English lessons, and she made me paper fans or microwaved eel over rice. I slept over her house all the way to the 11th grade. She was my only family in the states, or so worth calling.

Something that stayed with me, unfortunately, was an incident at her funeral. One “family” member, with the backing of many others, accused me of not mourning enough for Grandma. It was a public accusation. I was nineteen. And from it, utter humiliation and ridicule haunted me for years, though the guiltless accuser likely forgot the incident in a minute’s time.

Yesterday, I visited my grandma’s gravesite at Gate of Heaven in Los Gatos. I kneeled in the grass and thought she had the nicest picture on the block. I now have an answer to that accuser (and fellows). I mourned in private because I was afraid. If anyone—even those who knew Grandma—got a glimpse of my pain, they would see into my relationship with Kimiko. They would see our jargon, our stories, and the way we were. I wasn’t ready to share that. At nineteen, bereft and in pieces, I wanted to keep her mine and only mine for a little longer. Even then, you took from me whatever composure I could barely muster.

In An Iron Mask

angelaejkoh — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:08:28 +0000

Résumé by Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp,

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

ph. by me

In bed with three awfully hard cushions propped behind me, I read this poem out loud (from Pinsky and Dietz’ Poems to Read). “Might as well” fit like a backscratcher between “You” and “live” and it got me laughing until I toppled from my spot. I had gone through 193 pages before finding this Dorothy Parker gem. Salty. Sharp. A kind of piece I’d never taken to before.

It reminded me of 2009 when my losing streak was at its prime. I was entrenched in fears. How to learn without talent? How to listen without anger? Living seemed only an option since there was no immediate nuisance (that death would bring). So I lived, or more accurately, just sat and watched things move around me for a little bit. It wasn’t exciting.

I think I’m trying to say that I’ve been lost and breathless, a ghost in clothes. And I will probably go through that again, but I feel now, that I can survive it. It wasn’t so bad. If I’m living, I might as well write, and if I’m writing I might as well grow and be changed to what I can’t imagine. After all, I don’t want to die in an iron mask. The only poetry I leave, being the thoughts I never got to say.

Mailbox: Jedi Writer & Hobbies

angelaejkoh — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:30:22 +0000

all ph. by me

Incredibly, I get letters from other writers. These letters containing advice or questions often bring me a lightness of heart or to a humbling answer. Below, writer Sharif responds to my disheartened spiel about a colleague with a book contract, one she obtained before knowing the literary devices, functions, and hearts of novels (insert resentment here). Sharif says training matters in the end.

A successful Jedi writer

Be a Jedi knight, not a lame bitch. Luke Skywalker is given two options in Empire Strikes Back. 1. Finish your training and be awesome. 2. Go save Han and Leia. He didn’t finish his training just yet because he thought he was already awesome. Then he fought Vader and Vader fucked him up! The Sith lord is more a crippled machine than a person but he fucked up Luke and cut off his hand because Luke wasn’t ready.

But In Return of the Jedi, Luke finished his training and became awesome, fucked Vader up! You think some self-proclaimed writer would go back to Dagobah System to work with Yoda? No, but you would and you’ll be more awesome! I guess what I’m saying is keep your chin in its full and upright position.

Sharif (Irvine)

Outside of writing

You know, I follow your blog and whatnot, and I definitely admire your professionalism and elegance, but I can’t help but notice you never really talk about yourself outside of writing! Do you have any other hobbies and goals? Do you have a favorite food? I’ve always been curious about such things, since some of the most interesting people have some of the strangest/out-of-place hobbies. You should write about some of those things!

Tim (Pasadena)

Something strange I used to do was flower arranging, but by the time I got to the flowers they were dead. I had so many dead flowers arranged in my room that my friends would call it the cemetery! I know what “food” I remember the most. When I was fifteen and low on cash for the week I would boil water, stir in Tabasco, and drink it for breakfast. I’ve done it a handful of times because I thought it tasted like any other soup. It ends up, I just like Tabasco (leave a comment if you have an ulcer)!

On Brothers

angelaejkoh — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:17:54 +0000

If there was an alliance or a freebie card that God slipped into my hands before birth–it’d be an older brother. I didn’t recognize this until there was nothing left, only this card. I’m having some trouble here. You see, I scarcely talk about my brother. And for those who have one, who are one, would find this reasonable.

No matter how much we age, he’d lived more than me in the most similar circumstances (environmentally, biologically). To me, his word was final not because he was exceptionally loud, but because his word conveyed the world I’d face. He walked, broke his bones before I did. So there was always something to learn and be afraid of. Though he was particularly cruel with his bullying antics in my childhood, I think I was scared for other reasons. I believed he had a right to despise me. My parents reminded, “he’s had it worse” and even he must feel—he was a child faulted for being one and had thus grown to be an adult prematurely.

The whole way, I’d felt sorry for myself watching him (things I’d have to endure but never came). Like a worn broom he cleared my footpath. By the time it was my turn, I had little to bear. Evidently, I had had a childhood at all. When my parents blanked, lost me in a wonder park, it was my brother to find me huddled by the cobblestone street. I realized it’s not him that scares me. It’s what I imagine: a boy having to find his own way back to his lost parents. And most selfishly, what I would’ve done without that boy having suffered so.

Sincere Fear in Exchange for God

angelaejkoh — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:43:00 +0000

It’s been almost 4 years. Even now, I have no retrospect. When my lamp light makes black drapes on the walls, am I back on that street again? I only remember sweating my sheets. How my lids closed heavy over anxious, wide-dilated pupils. How my slackened faith must have created a cellar of demons that knew my Godless isolation. Everything was a ghost: the corner, the door handle, the vent, just ghosts and ghouls–I wasn’t safe. And each dead-leaf morning, I prayed “one more day.”

Because love could be so difficult to refine, I used fear instead. It was the only way I could communicate a sincerity for God. When everything was terrifying beyond their temporal rationale, there was no family or drink I begged for more than Him. And the darker the corner, the vents, the greater my gravity towards Him. Beyond wanting to feel love, I wanted to stay alive though I couldn’t merit it from the unnatural fear I fed Him. I’d stare at my plaster walls, looking for a flicker, making bets in my head. If You’re here, show me a streak of shine. If You think I’ll get through the day, make a clang from the sill. Show me I still have life beyond this.

A Brief Sketch

angelaejkoh — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:45:00 +0000

Often, I wonder if my youthful pleas to become a savant of letters had been a Faustian bargain in disguise. There is no room for a fall-back plan and so my frenzied passions have been aimed towards becoming a novelist and a poet my whole life. In this desperation, I’ve been jousting my way into scholarly academia with the discipline of a Buddhist monk. My childhood was filled with Korean, Japanese, and English, learning to engrave and accept paradoxes between cultures and language in my soft mind. I would hear music and rhapsody in my nightly dreams, filling my days with soulful poetry of diverse language and meaning. I had my family fluff me up with mystifications of swan heroines and poke me with lessons of bloody endings and mass seppuku suicides. In this, I became elated with stories and the intricacy of imagination woven into truth. I left for Japan to the Shinanomachi Inter-cultural School to learn the art of the Meiji I-novel and fell in love with Soseki’s Kokoro and Dazai’s No Longer Human. I would read about self-aggrandizing isolation through stories and absorb the Japanese appreciation for the simplicity of Tanka, Katauta and Haiku poetry. I decided when I was sixteen that fiction-writing and poetry is a never ending process of learning rather than knowing. Since then, I have been unable to control this insatiable thirst to grow alongside accomplished writers in the field of both fiction and poetry. As the Faustian bargain has been sealed, my thirst has been unquenchable. I am qualified because I am a misfit in a state of perpetual madness. I am obsessed with fiction and poetry like Vladimir Nobokov’s Humbert Humbert is with his Lolita. I am qualified because I do not sleep, I do not believe in “Plan B,” and everyday I write until my nails crackle and splinter into my fingertips.