Jihyun Yun is a Korean-American poet. Born and raised in northern California, She now reside in Ann Arbor, Michigan where she waitresses, reads for Tinderbox Poetry Journal and is working on her first full length poetry collection “Some are Always Hungry”. Her work interrogates her family history of war and subsequent immigration through the lens of food (both the making and the partaking of) or the lack thereof.  She is interested in the way food serves as a survival mechanism and surrogate homecoming within diaspora communities, and within her own family, as a means of storytelling and historical inheritance. Unsurprisingly, her primary interest outside of poetry is all things food and booze related.

Her poetry heroes include Yusef Komunyakaa (who was her mentor at NYU), Li-Young Lee, Sharon Olds and Anne Carson, though that list expands everyday. She is currently re-reading “Don’t Call us Dead” by Danez Smith and “Night Sky with Exit Wounds” by Ocean Vuong. Next on her TBR is “Rosa’s Einstein” by Jenn Givhan whose work she cannot recommend enough.

A recipient of a Fulbright Research and Brooklyn Poets Fellowship, and a Blue Mesa Review Contest Winner, she is a four-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize.

Her work can be found at Narrative Magazine (https://www.narrativemagazine.com/issues/poems-week-2015-2016/poem-week/crab-j-h-yun), New Delta Review (http://ndrmag.org/poetry/2018/12/two-poemsjihyunyun/), AAWW The Margins (https://aaww.org/pray-away-j-h-yun/)  and elsewhere. You can find her being awkward but friendly on Twitter or her website.

website: JihyunYun.com