The Song Cave

David Seung's debut book of poems,Silkworm's Pansori, is a collection of English-language sijo poems: a traditional Korean poetic form that is straightforward in its syntax but emotionally nuanced. Following this historical form closely, these are poems of elegance and understatement, like a painted still life imbued with heartbreaking subtlety and metaphor. Yet the poet can only get so far with this exercise before his own personal history, a family legacy of war and torture, starts creeping in to shatter the otherwise poetic calm.