Some Are Always Hungry

by Jihyun Yun

Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, Some Are Always Hungry chronicles a family’s wartime survival, immigration, and heirloom trauma through the lens of food, or the lack thereof. Through the vehicle of recipe, butchery, and dinner table poems, the collection negotiates the myriad ways diasporic communities comfort and name themselves in other nations, as well as the ways cuisine is inextricably linked to occupation, transmission, and survival. Dwelling on the personal as much as the historical, Some Are Always Hungry traces the lineage of the speaker’s place in history and diaspora through mythmaking and cooking, which is to say, conjuring.

Genres: Poetry, Food, Immigration, Fiction, Asian Literature, Asian American, Asia

66 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2020

About the author

Jihyun Yun is a Korean American author from the the San Francisco Bay Area. Her debut collection SOME ARE ALWAYS HUNGRY won the 2019 Prairie Schooner Prize and was published by the University of Nebraska Press in September 2020. Her debut young adult novel AND THE RIVER DRAGS HER DOWN will be published by Knopf BFYR (US) and Rock the Boat (UK) in fall of 2025.

Her work has been published in Best New Poets, Narrative Magazine, Adroit and elsewhere. She currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Reviews

[may ➹]

update: it was a good boost for my reading challenge AND an excellent book. win-win!

absolutely love Yun’s writing style and I can’t wait to read more from her—her use of food and nature to write about war, survival, immigration, family, and womanhood is absolutely brilliant

“I leave, I leave— / At the end of this story, / I walk into the sea / and it chooses / not to drown me.”

——————

reading a poetry book as my first book of the year so I can actually be ahead on my reading challenge for once 👍🏼

[River · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5

Now, men with bayonets.
Tomorrow, dogs. In no version
are they not hunting us.

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

This compilation by Jihyun Yun is a stunning collection of poetry which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry.

These poems, stories as poetry, share the experience, thoughts and feelings of immigrating from one culture to another that is fundamentally different in many ways. Language. Food and recipes. The respect, reverence even, for elders. The painful memories of leaving, of needing to leave for safety, the mourning of old ways. Food. Cooking. Culture. Poverty. Abuse. Racism. Survival. Becoming, being a woman. Shame. The memories, both good and bad. The myths and legends of a culture left behind. Loss. The aching desire for this new world to be filled with the things missed in the old one. Grateful for new opportunities, but sensing the negativity that radiates off of those who never wanted them, who wish them to leave. The scars that are left on their souls and minds.

This collection is beautiful, gut-wrenching, poignant, emotional, stunningly spectacular, unsettling, thoughtful, thought-provokingly challenging and inspiring. It left me with whispers of words, thoughts and feelings that continue to return to me, words left to enlighten and reflect upon.

I will be thinking about this collection for a long time.


Pub Date: 1 Sep 2020

Many thanks for the ARC provided by University of Nebraska Press / Longleaf Services and Edelweiss

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful poems about war, refugees, immigration, and above all family. All around amazing structure, language, and emotional intensity. Will be returning to these poems again. Some of the forms were also creative, like 'War Soup':

Ingredients
*Pork Belly
*Anchovy Broth
*Instant noodles
*Onion
*Garlic
*Spam
*Hot pepper paste
*American Cheese
*Kimchi

1. In eight cups of boiling water, add dried kelp and anchovy, soaked shitake mushrooms and onion tops to make a broth. Grind four cloves of garlic together with hot pepper paste, soy and sugar for seasoning. Set the mixture aside for later.

2. Onion carpeted in pork fat and rice wine flared, very briefly, an ignited landscape. Then sun-dried pepper flakes staining the oil, a sundry of roots tossed in at rough dice, zucchini cut to half-moons, halved and quartered heads of kimchi. The stock should not disappoint, heavy with anchovy and odd bits. Set it all to boil, no witness, low heat.

3. We’ve not long been able to afford this: life giving flesh, singed wire hair that remembers outhouse and apple core. The fat ripples its own horizon, studded white over pink meat, cartilage wedged there where the muscle gathers. Cut the slabs into mince, light those dented pots.

4. Dear family I left behind
in the northern province of my birth,
do you live as I feed and am fed
have they given you to sea?

5. Then Spam, more tofu than animal, cut to cubes. Say, we made do with what we did. At the bases, the Americans gave cans of beans or meat. We weren’t picky, boiled it all with weeds and scraped carcass. We called it Johnson-tang, rejoiced like we’d never again need to eat, as if the miles were no real thing. Now chili, now green onion sprigs.

6. The northern village of my birth, a storm crushed window. The gaunt faces of my people parade the TV screen; dear lord, dear leader.

7. Let the noodles wilt
over broth just before serving.
At the table, over kerosene flame,
three generations tend to the pyre
that feeds and feeds.

What a blessing,
to have passed through hunger.
I will teach my daughters
to bare their palms.
I will teach them how to beg.

**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘You were never meant to be American. Your root, they believe they can taste: carnal amen, rice milk and spice. A winter sunrise fogged in the land of morning calm. All imagined, but no matter. You are still a girl. With luck, the guilty ones will wait awhile. When the first blood releases between your thighs, they’ll come. You were born knowing to mourn this.’

this collection made my heart feel bruised in the best way. I’ll soon be ordering myself a copy to reread and annotate. the passages around food were so touching to me and my favorite poem in the collection, ‘the leaving season’ also explores how this topic intertwines with trauma and womanhood. gorgeous, gorgeous work.

‘I’ll wait until the water golds, then yuja rind,
coiled cinnamon, clove, dates like sun
worn faces. Drink it all,
dredge the bottom for sunk honey
pull the thumb of ginger into your mouth
and suck. I mean for you to taste
your inheritance.
The gunpowder, our soil.’

‘What makes you clasp your palms
to your nose is the bell that calls in
my hunger. I don’t care anymore
what you think. Give me sesame oil
and fat. Give me bloodied and raw. The white broth of famine food.
Food made to last. To transform
with the seasons. To survive
other nations. Give me all
I avoided so long for your sake.
Give me my heritage back.
Let me suck meat off the shell
of every animal you won’t eat.
Give me refuse, and I’ll make it
worthy.’

‘My dear,
the war
is over.
A distant
country
tells me
we are
split.’

[Jihyun Yun]

Dear reader,

This book has been out in the world for more than five years now, but I know people are starting to discover it again due to my novel-- so I thought I would drop some trigger warnings just in case there are folks that prefer to go into a read prepared.

This poetry collection prominently grapples with misogyny, sexual assault, racism, and war. There are also prolonged descriptions of violence against both human and animal bodies.

Thank you so much to everyone who picks up this book in which my younger, more raw self is so well preserved. I hope you find her beautiful.


Jihyun

[Mariah · Rating 2 out of 5]

ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

I struggled a lot with this one. I am always eager for stories from immigrants, it's such a unique perspective and truly singular experience - no two are the same. I crave to read about more stories like that of my father and mother, to see how they translate to other cultures and other mother tongues.

I failed to connect with this one, I didn't feel like there was a clear reasoning for the order of the poems, there was no natural progression of the 'story' for me.

[Oreoluwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"When the first blood releases between your thighs, they'll come. You were born knowing to mourn this."

Some Are Always Hungry is a timeless collection of poems. Jihyun Yun's exploration on immigration, food, family, womanhood, survival, war amongst many other things through evocative words is one of the best poetry collections I've read in a long time.

This collection is filling while making you beg for more. I love how unrestrained the poems were and felt to me. They hit the nail on the head, no hanky-panky or shenanigans.

I was honestly impressed by this collection. So impressed. I went in, not knowing what to expect, not having any high hopes and I was blown away. I was blown away so much that it helped me get my writing groove back and I penned down two poems the night I started it.

If you are looking for a collection of poems that will (mostly) make you tick all your boxes in what you are looking for in a poetry collection, read this!

[•°• gabs •°• · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Commit yourself to this un-harvest. To the joy of unmaking."

I am completely blown away by this poetry collection, to be honest. I really did not expect to be so impressed because usually I am quite critical when it comes to poetry, but this one... The way immigration, diaspora, womanhood, family bonds and survival are presented is just so... heartwrenching, but at the same time inspiring. The food metaphors are incredible and the way the traditional recipes are woven into the narrative is just so original and well done.

"Now, men with bayonets. Tomorrow, dogs. In no version are they not hunting us."

I don't even know what to say, I loved it and I highly recommend it.

ARC provided by NetGalley but all opinions are my own.

[Keiralika · Rating 4 out of 5]

What’s the use of remembrance if I don’t hold the power in it? And all the ingredients with a very thick culture, which I couldn’t understand more than a mere slight of familiarity, since my stomach works to remind me of the devil in it, like a great flood my body washed up to the shore. Lay on the mattress of yellowish radiance, thinking that maybe my suffering is inherited and I'm the only one who's brave enough to pay for it. All the poets suffer, and that’s where the lights come in, some said, but meaning can be different. No matter how perfect I perform as a mother, caressing my children and broken familiars, I could never be a woman.

[Soula Kosti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why blame a human for his nature
which at its core is merely hunger?

4.5 ✨

First things first, this cover is simply breathtaking! The minute I saw this one on the bookstore's shelf, it was so hard not to pick it up to read the premise. Some Are Always Hungry (what a title, I know!) is a poetry collection by Jihyun Yun exploring themes of womanhood, parenthood, inheritance, loss, and the aftermaths of war and immigration often through the lens of food and hunger.

Some of the poems in this collection are written in the form of recipes while in most of them you'll find mentions of foods and ingredients. As an immigrant myself, I deeply connected with Jihyun's words; "I mean for you to taste your inheritance" and "You will not forget these aches you learned" and "You were born knowing to mourn this."

Favorite poems:
- For Now, Nothing Burns
- Diptych of Girl in 1953
- Field Notes from My Grandparents

When I fled
without returning you
to earth, you did not resent me.
Please say it,
you did not resent me.

- Homonyms
- Yellow Fever
- Blood Type
- The Tale of Janghwa and Hongryeon
- Caught
- Menstruation Triptych

She's never wanted to mother though the world demands from her nothing else.

- Benediction as Disdained Cuisine
- Praise
- Thirst
- Savaging
- The Leaving Season

[Andrea Pole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some Are Always Hungry by Jihyun Yun is a lovely work that weaves together from a single thread a whole that is both relevant and timeless. The immigrant experience is detailed through the story of food, or lack thereof, as a means to bond and unite and, ultimately, to sustain. These are powerful words of survival, sharply observed, and strung together in a beautiful and deeply affecting way.

Many thanks to NetGalley and University of Nebraska Press for the opportunity to read this ARC.

[Jungian.Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to #Negalley for providing this book.
This book follows the life of a family from the perspective of a daughter through war, starvation, and immigration. I am assuming that this story follows a Korean family who had to do everything to survive during the way that leads to the division of Korea. A story told through recipes, tales of fictional characters, discomfort, and shame.
I felt how personal this book was. You cannot express such emotions unless you have gone through it. I enjoyed the way some things and situations were explained. Take for example when she talked about miscarriage her the shame she felt being an unmarried woman, she used the description of a stepmother poking a mouse. Or when she talked about bombings, "the planes dropped their eggs, hatched a red so loud the landscape was struck briefly mute"
"Call us lotus, we bloom in rot" a line from the poem 'For Now, Nothing Burns' has to be my favorite in the whole book.
It is quite a short book, I hope you check it out.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems and other recipes of history and inheritance. Love: cooked or raw. Violence and spices. Haunted food memories. Geography of migratory hungers and nourishments.

"Grandmother Praying"
by Jihyun Yun

Bless this December day, so mild we might finally
undress, drink corn-silk tea cold without shivering.
Bless this home and its four corners, the rice in our bowls
though it is infested. Bless this stone-cut family
so determined not to waste. Bless the weevils,
whole or quartered, peppering the grains,
bori masking the taste, their hard husks
we chew through.

Bless the hen we braised, the rice wine's effervescence.
The milk thistle and stewed burdock, bless them too.
Bless my daughter in her oscillating moods,
her moments of tenderness that set my teeth
aching. Bless my granddaughter,
though she's forsaken you.

Forgive the body, this naked mollusk thing,
I know what it can do. Slit and puncture
wound, I've seen a red sky
escape through. Blue knife of morning, dusk
at comfort stations where girls were halved stone fruit
No
I do not resent you.

Bless the ones still tethered to earth,
who grapple with their own
disappearing. Let them soon reunite
with viscera and bone, forgiven to whole
and rejoice for there are no burning cities
waiting to inherit them.

[Emily]

"Let me suck meat off the shell
of every animal you won't eat.
Give me refuse, and I'll make it worthy."
-Benediction as Disdained Cuisine

Stunning poems about food and family, immigration and inheritance, diaspora and the dinner table. I set out to read this slowly, a few poems at a time, but ended up devouring most of it in one sitting. I started marking favorites, but then looked back and saw I'd marked half the book. Highly recommend.

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy!

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intimate, raw, and heartbreaking collection of poems. Yun beautifully captures intergenerational trauma that so often comes with han, an untranslatable word from Korean that describes the collective sorrow Koreans carry as a result of their turbulent past. This collection is particularly raw for Koreans and the diaspora—especially those who know the language—as it opens up a particular, heartbreaking tenderness and love for one’s Korean identity. It creates an intimate space that, perhaps to the chagrin of some, bars them from fully immersing themselves in these poems. Maybe this was the intention, which I’m thankful I can be a part of, but I also understand the frustrations that non-Koreans in particular would have. However, I don’t believe this should stop anyone from enjoying the lyricism and carefully crafted lines in Yun’s poetry.

Yun reflects on han through language, recipes, folktales, womanhood, and history in brilliant ways. This is a small detail, but one I always notice: the refusal to italicize “foreign” words (though I've done it in this review), write in hangul, or explain what they mean. This is the fierce love that Yun displays for her culture and language; almost a way to make up for the times when colonizers attempted to eradicate the Korean identity (or to quote one of her lines that I found brilliant: “de-Korean the broth”). Furthermore, we see this in the beliefs and folktales she chooses such as ‘Janghwa and Hongryeon’ or blood types. (Side note: Many Koreans know their blood types and, much like Western zodiacs, determine the type of personality you have.) Yun weaves history—specifically when the peninsula was brutally colonized by Japan and during the Korean War—with food, reflecting how influential these periods were on the construction of Korean gastronomy. She already foreshadows this with the title of her collection, though one will discover that the hunger is also for closure.

Perhaps the thorniest of her topics is womanhood; a difficult subject matter in Korean culture and society. The rawness of exploring “taboo” topics such as sex, menstruation, and blatant misogyny many have faced in the past and, unfortunately, still face shed light in ways that some may find uncomfortable. Yet, it is a needed conversation that Yun addresses with nuance and by giving autonomy to these women.

Yun also touches a bit on immigration, though I felt that there was a lot left to be desired. You see elements of the aforementioned themes, but I got the impression that this heavy and complex topic could be explored in its own collection. In addition, I felt that some of the poems were a bit disconnected at times—whether it’s because of the order or the general structure of some poems—though this is more a reflection of what I like than a fault of her style.

Overall, a stunning collection that gives readers a small glimpse into the deep complexities of being Korean. I would strongly recommend this to anyone interested in poetry that takes time to digest.

I received this collection of poems from NetGalley and the University of Nebraska Press for an honest review.

[Emily Yoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always love Jihyun's work. I've been a big fan of her for a while, and it is a true gift to have a physical collection of her poems to hold in our hands.

[Chris LaTray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A courageous and startling collection of poems. I'm struck by the similarities in the stories of all people displaced by violence and war. In particular the poem "Savaging" brought me up short, working as I am on the history of my own people displaced by colonialism and genocide, forced into living on the fringes of society, existing on scraps foraged from garbage heaps and slaughterhouse cast-offs. None of which happened all that long ago. This work hits me right in the heart.

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excerpts:

I leave, I leave—
At the end of this story,
I walk into the sea
and it chooses
not to drown me.

(from “The Leaving Season”)

In no version
are they not hunting us.

(from “The Daughter Transmorphic”)

What beast would gift me this body and name itself God / what borrowed rib and rain / what stories / what claim over that which grows / in another /

(from “Diptych of Animal and Womb”)

[Anna Goldberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional collection of poetry, meditating on themes of family, diaspora, and culture. This collection synthesizes Korean history, gender identity, and food through its poems, which find new forms in recipes, lists, and family stories. I would highly recommend this book to everyone.

[Callum McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of poetry is predominantly focussed on the physical and emotional hardships of the immigrant experience, and the ways this trauma can be passed from one generation to the next. The use of language is visceral, the structure playful, and several lines throughout hit me like a sucker punch.

There is such reverence for food in this collection, and I thought this recurring motif was used really effectively. Yun explores the art and ritual of food preparation, celebrating its ability to connect families with their heritage; tastes and smells transporting them to their homeland. But she also comments on the intense, animalistic consumption that is often inherent to those who have known true hunger.

Though deeply personal, the collection pulls back at times to take in wider contextual details, exploring the various factors that can push people to relocate in the first place. War, Occupation, abuse, and poverty are all touched upon, as are the various issues that await immigrants when they reach their new homes, such as racism, language barriers, and a pressure to shed aspects of their identities – even down to their birthnames.

While it’s fair to say there isn’t a huge amount of light to balance the themes’ innate melancholy, it’s an impressive collection overall, and Yun is a poet I’m glad to have discovered.

Thank you to the publisher for a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Daisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Advanced review copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Wow. I do not often read poetry, but the synopsis of this collection was intriguing and I was completely blown away by the mastery of Jihyun Yun.

Some are always hungry is a collection of poetry that presents themes of womanhood, immigration, family life and the struggle for survival through the lens of food and dinner time. This is unlike anything I have ever read before, and I was blown away by the heartbreaking exploration of trauma and family in the midst of war. I am not well versed in the world of poetry, but I loved this collection and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the themes it explores!

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much about food and hunger and war and viscera. But so much honesty, too. So much "here I am."

This book is very much about Korean and Korean-American experience which is to say: being ravaged by powers you can't control and living anyway. I wish I could have handed this book to people who went 'oh yeah kpop' when I tried to tell them about living in Korea for a year.

This book is excellent.

Total score: 5/5 stars

[Laura Sackton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. I'm not sure I've ever read poems that describe, and use food to make meaning, the way Yun does here. Stunning. I found it hard to put down this book once I picked it up. Wanted to underline everything.

[Kelly Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning debut, such innovation and intimacy. A poet to study and learn from.

[Joss · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a beautiful, painful, disturbing and stunning collection of poetry. The writing is dense, setting it apart from the plethora of accessible poetry that exists nowadays. There is a time and a place for the Rupi Kaur-style of poetry, but Yun’s writing is literature that you can really sink your teeth into. It is not there to be empathised with, nor does it exist to calm our souls or make me feel heard. It exists to make itself heard, to inform me, not to settle me. It is often completely painful reading, but so utterly important. The writing explores themes of poverty, woman-hood, family, abuse, lack of education, racism, diaspora and the effects of these on the human body, soul and mind.
The language is mouthy and tangible, lyrical - like you can chew on each word. It is beautiful and whole. This feels appropriate given it centres around recipes, food and the home kitchen. This brings the writing into the home, and everything else spills out from this central idea. It’s completely original, again setting it apart from so much other poetry. The feeling of homeliness also provides a stark contrast to the dark and heavy nature of so many of the poems. This works really well, and draws attention to pain at all the right moments and all the right ways. These are important words.

My criticisms are few - sometimes the writing became so dense that it felt impenetrable, like I’d missed the point and meaning, or perhaps that there wasn’t really a point to it in the first place. At times this felt frustrating. At other times, the voice could become confusing and disjointed, like another voice had entered the scene, unexplained. But then in some ways this was refreshing and grabbed my attention in new ways.

I loved this book - I think it’s beautiful and important.

-

I received an ARC on NetGalley - all opinions are my own.

[a ☕︎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

really nauseating… but a worthwhile read. memorable poems: field notes from my grandparents, yellow fever, saga of the nymph and the woodcutter, husband stitch (particularly stomach-turning), the tale of janghwa and hongryeon. tell me again of love and its dark mirrors: well-skinned pear, our cheeks in the dust. the wet shred of a body.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some are Always Hungry was an interesting reflection on food, family, and the intergenerational traumas that can shape us.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous collection that weaves personal, cultural and intergenerational history. Highly recommend!

[Snezana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't often go for poetry, because I have to be in a certain mood, but this now only drew me in with the beautiful cover, the idea of using food to describe characters, emotions, events and simply life was terribly tempting.

I could identify with this compilation as I also changed cultures and countries, so it was relatable on a whole different level.

It's dark, raw, real and emotional. It hits different.

I would highly recommend to anyone who wants to read more about family, cultures, immigration, survival, struggles.