Description of the interview: Maija Rhee Devine loved literature and earned a Master’s in English. But she resisted for 25 years her husband’s encouragement to write about her life, a story that starts with her as an infant being given away by her biological family while they kept her twin brother. Once she began writing, The Voices of Heaven and her poetry book Long Walks on Short Days were published. She discusses the culture and history of South Korea that shaped her writing–the effects of patriarchy in all aspects of Korean life, gender and population imbalance issues, the impact of the Korean War, and the future of South and North Korea relations. She also talks about her works-in-progress on Comfort Women of WWII, all stories of the past keeping powerful rein on the present and future.

Zoom reading: COVID anthology, When the Virus Came Calling: COVID-19 Strikes America, editor, Thelma T. Reyna (Golden Foothills Press, CA). Lake Como poets’ group zoom reading, hosted by Armando Sanchez, 10/18/2020, Sunday, 2pm PST. Now on youtube, 10/24/2020:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lake+como+poets

or

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jLTQviL0Lg

My portion of the Zoom reading: (1) intro of me by the editor, Thelma T. Reyna: 22:40

(2) my reading of 2 poems: 27:50-18:04

(3) my concluding remark: 43:29

DoveTales, A Writing for Peace Literary Journal of the Arts, Issue III, August 1, 2020, RESISTANCE, guest editor, Brad Wetzler. https://writingforpeace.org/resistance-dovetales-literary-journal-of-the-arts-is-live/  

Maija’s nonfiction, “The Korean War and Chocolate Candies,” https://writingforpeace.org/maija-rhee-devine-3/

 DoveTales, A Writing for Peace Literary Journal of the Arts, Issue III, RESISTANCE, Aug. 1, 2020, , guest editor, Brad Wetzler. https://writingforpeace.org/maija-rhee-devine/

Death By Sex, Death By Corona                   Maija Rhee Devine

We survived, haven’t we, the forced sex pandemic
sex at gun points 70 times a week, the lowest
number among so many scholars’ ways of counting.                                                Whores*!
238 of us, tears of shame, told our stories
six, now housemates in House of Sharing,
bit our lips to pulp when these happened:

K, “comfort woman” at 15, in two years, 7,280 sex acts
L, at 15, three years, 10,920 times
P, at 17, four years, 14,560 times
C, at 27, two years, 7,280 times                                                                               Lying bitches*!
H, at 13, two years, 7,280 times
L, at 12, three years, 10,920 times

At 90 through 104 now, who could’ve imagined
our faces turning blue again, this time, killing micro-machines
death dust blowing into our lungs any moment, deadlier                                       Kill yourselves*!
than guns, more sure-handed than our own hands
that tried to tear open our necks people now call
mooshoi mokseum, “iron necks.”

*The voices of Japanese conservatives slung at Korean ‘comfort women’ visiting Japan on their trips to present testimonies of their lives as ‘comfort women’ of WWII.

 Museum of Sexual Slavery by Japanese Military, Seoul, Korea

A painting by former Korean comfort woman Kim Wha-Sun who passed away in 2012.

Maija’s poem “Comfort Women of WWII” was published in Pleiades (the literary journal of Central Missouri State University), summer 2020, and was a featured poem of the week , September, 2020: https://pleiadesmag.com/featured-poem-comfort-women-of-wwii-by-maija-rheedevine/?fbclid=IwAR1KoXiHO1RtLqvhD6eER1qALG9T9gltdJrVoSuQgdxs0H4YTSLGHVDCt5Q

Maija’s 3 poems were published in an anthology, When the Virus Came Calling: COVID-19 Strikes America (Golden Foothills Press, CA, 2020). 11 of the 46 writers are poets laureate, including Richard Blanco, the US presidential poet laureate at Obama’s 2^nd inauguration.

https://www.seattlen.com/m/bbs/board.php?bo_table=News&wr_id=32526

COVID anthology available at:

(1) Golden Foothills Press

http://www.goldenfoothillspress.com/Our-Books-and-Authors.html

(2) Amazon

(In Korean) The SeattleN news, as well as CBS, carried news about Maija’s 1-minute video story of the first woman voter in her family and other 1-minute video stories by 99 American women, including 4 former First Ladies (Michelle Obama, Hilary Clinton, Rosalyn Carter, and Laura Bush).  https://www.seattlen.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=Headline&wr_id=5669