READING SUNA JANG’S POETIC WORLD

(Mai White)

As a Vietnamese teacher and writer living in Australia, I often walk the bridge between languages and creativity. Somewhere on that bridge, I found THE AIRPORT, BONDS BEYOND MEASURE – SET IT FREE by SunA Jang. It felt like meeting someone who also understands the ache of distance between countries and between moments of the heart. This is Jang’s third poetry book, it feels as if she has been writing it all her life. Each poem gathers what the years have left behind, a trace of love, a glimmer of loss, a sense of forgiveness and sets them gently free, like paper birds. The airport, in her hands, is a place of departure and a metaphor for returning to oneself. Her language of Korean in rhythm and universal in soul is a kind of soft healing. Reading her poems, I sense how poetry can turn longing into light, and how an ordinary moment such as a step, a gaze, a memory can open toward eternity.

THE AIRPORT, BONDS BEYOND MEASURE perfectly captures departure, distance, the ache of leaving, and the emotional threshold where one must let go while also returning inward. On the other hand, ECHOES OF MEMORY deals with the way memory flickers between presence and absence, and how ordinary gestures or moments suddenly reveal emotional depth, matching your idea of small details opening into eternity. The emotional terrain of departure and return explains clearly in the first pair of poems. We can see that thresholds become places of inward reckoning rather than mere physical locations. One poem traces the sensation of standing at the edge of a journey, holding the heaviness of cultural stories while learning to release what no longer needs revealing. The airport setting becomes a symbolic space in which the self becomes both traveller and companion, a reminder that separation and renewal move together. Alongside it, another poem listens to the qualities of memory that continue to glow even after time has passed, offering a sense of continuity between past and present. Both pieces show how longing can soften into clarity and how small gestures or remembered impressions can expand into something quietly luminous.

As a Vietnamese teacher and writer living in Australia, I often find myself navigating the delicate currents between languages and memories. In SunA Jang’s third poetry collection, THE AIRPORT, BONDS BEYOND MEASURE – SET IT FREE, I discovered a voice that can be heard across those same currents including both the intimacy of personal experience and the universality of human emotion. Each poem is an exploration of the ties that bind us, both visible and invisible, enduring even as time and distance try to loosen them. Reading her work, I felt a profound sense of recognition and solace as if the poems themselves were reaching across borders, offering simple companionship to anyone who has ever paused at a threshold, longing to connect with a moment, a person, or a self that is simple nice.

WE WALKED THE MAP TOGETHER shared paths that stretch across continents, the survival of connection despite geographical and temporal gaps while BONDS BEYOND MEASURE explores emotional threads that persist regardless of time, distance, or circumstance, exactly what you describe as the universal human longing to connect. In this second group of poems, the world becomes a map of relationships that stretch across continents, showing how human connection often moves ahead of spoken language. One poem follows footsteps through foreign landscapes, where shared glances and patient companionship reveal a bond that deepens even in silence. Another turns inward toward the enduring ties that persist regardless of distance or circumstance, suggesting that true connection is woven from countless small recognitions rather than proximity alone. Together they express the way emotional currents travel far beyond the boundaries of time zones and geography, echoing the universal desire to stay connected with the people and selves we carry with us.

Jang’s mastery of language is remarkable in the act of translation between Korean and English and in the way she reshapes memory through words. The rhythms of Korean connection in her phrasing is careful to reflect in English, creating a space where cultural specificity meets accessibility. The collection offers a nuanced interplay between two linguistic worlds, and in doing so, invites readers to experience the subtle textures of memory refracted through the mirror of another tongue. The poems become a meditation on identity and belonging, and in this cross-cultural negotiation, we witness language as both vessel and transformation, capable of holding sorrow and joy with equal grace.

A JEOGORI STITCHED INTO A WHITE ÁO DÀI is a deeply cross-cultural poem where Korean and Vietnamese imagery weave into one linguistic and emotional space, exemplifying how memory shifts when written through another language and INTERNATIONAL ARIRANG is a cultural song transported into a global context, perfect for illustrating how language, memory, and cultural identity expand beyond borders yet remain rooted. This third pair engages more deeply with the idea of translation, both linguistic and emotional. One poem brings two cultures into a single breath, stitching together Korean and Vietnamese imagery to show how memory shifts when reframed through another language. It becomes an exploration of what remains constant and what transforms when stories are told across cultural borders. The accompanying poem takes a familiar cultural symbol and opens it into a global space, showing how heritage can be felt and understood beyond its origin. Together, they reveal the subtle textures that emerge when languages and histories overlap, illustrating how the poet’s bilingual voice creates a meeting place where specificity and universality coexist.

Our stories of that time—
Now we sit leisurely and enjoy the days,
And in the stillness that brightens with clarity,
We engrave white names
into the stillness of snow,
and in the breath and names
they left behind,
old stories
come back to life.
(from A JEOGORI STITCHED INTO A WHITE ÁO DÀI)

Not a matter of change,
but a deepening authenticity—
to be ourselves.
a dignified, majestic movement,
the “International Arirang” we dance together.
(from INTERNATIONAL ARIRANG)

Throughout the collection, a sense of pedagogic care and attentiveness shines through. As a teacher, Jang demonstrates a keen understanding of human perception and emotional tone, guiding the reader without prescribing interpretation. The poems are gentle lessons in observation, empathy, and self-reflection, offering insight into the quiet mechanisms by which we hold and release our experiences. This teaching presence nurtures, allowing the poems to unfold as invitations to witness, to feel, and to inhabit spaces that are often overlooked. Each carefully placed word functions as a soft compass, pointing toward the richness of inner life and the resonance of human connection.

SELF-RESPECT, SELF-COMPASSION is a poem that feels like a meaningful lesson that is reflective, introspective, offering emotional steadiness without prescribing solutions. Together with THE QUIETEST LANGUAGE, it shows how understanding and healing happen not through instruction but through presence and sensitivity, perfect for highlighting Jang’s teacherly tenderness. The poems reflect a teaching sensibility grounded in compassion and attentiveness. One piece offers a gentle inquiry into the emotional labour of being human, acknowledging both vulnerability and resilience without instructing the reader toward a fixed interpretation. It reads like quiet guidance, encouraging self-regard and patience with one’s own becoming. The other poem embodies an even softer pedagogy, suggesting that the deepest forms of communication occur beyond spoken language. In these works, the poet’s presence feels like that of a careful mentor, guiding the reader toward recognition and self-understanding through subtle observation rather than explicit direction.

It would be enough
to have moved beyond so much—
and yet, these rough hands
must keep running.
Even when joy shines bright,
it reveals too many forms of pain.
(from SELF-RESPECT, SELF-COMPASSION)

On days when words fall short,
Tears speak first,
In place of lips.
More quietly
Than any words,
They seek to heal.
(from THE QUIETEST LANGUAGE)

Formal craft in the collection is delicate and powerful. The lineation, enjambment, and pacing reflect the ebb and flow of memory and emotion, while moments of repetition, quality, and sonic texture enhance the lyricism without ever becoming ornamental. Jang’s attention to form complements the emotional landscape, allowing a quiet tension to arise between restraint and expression. These structural choices amplify the sense of intimacy, creating poems that feel lived in and breathed through, where each pause, each visual space on the page, mirrors the rhythms of thought and feeling. Her work exemplifies how form and content can exist in a harmonious dialogue, guiding the reader’s attention with subtle authority.
COMMA is a poem built on understanding, subtle shifts, and delicate enjambment. Its form itself teaches the reader to slow down and feel the space between thoughts. When moving to STEPS OF ENTWINED TREES, its pacing, reflective turns, and careful unfolding of imagery embody the exact formal restraint and quiet tension you describe. Form becomes an expressive force in this fifth pair of poems. Lineation, pacing, and serenity illuminate the inner movements of thought. One poem is built of pauses that create space around emotion, allowing clarity to emerge through stillness. Its structure invites the reader to breathe between lines and to feel the shifting weight of memory as it settles. The second poem, with its contemplative unfolding, mirrors the slow revelation of meaning through its steady progression. In both, restraint and precision shape the emotional landscape. The architecture of each piece feels deliberate, showing how the poet uses form not as ornament but as an essential part of how experience becomes art.

The rain sits by the window,
softly tapping me awake.
(from COMMA)

In feelings yet undefined,
I lift my eyes to the sky
and cast my question.
(from STEPS OF ENTWINED TREES)

After considering all relevant aspects, THE AIRPORT, BONDS BEYOND MEASURE – SET IT FREE is a collection that endures beyond its own pages. It gains brief encounters and eternal bonds, ordinary moments transformed into lasting significance, and the gentle persistence of memory as a source of warmth. The poems invite reflection, compassion, and gratitude, leaving the reader both comforted and stirred. SunA Jang has created a special world and in that world emotional depth, cross-cultural sensitivity, teaching wisdom, formal precision, and the universal longing for connection converge. For anyone willing to connect with her words, the collection offers a quiet sanctuary, a reminder that even in transience, there are bonds beyond measure and that poetry, at its most tender, can teach us to love, remember, and return again.

Meeting SunA Jang at the INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF WRITERS WRITING IN KOREAN affirmed what her poems had already suggested: a gracious presence, open-hearted, and deeply attuned to the traces of language and human feeling. In our brief conversations, I sensed an immediate kinship shaped by our shared ties to Vietnam and our mutual devotion to words as a way of understanding the world. That encounter remained with the same warmth found in her work, reminding me that literary connection is formed on the page and in the simple, genuine moments between two people who recognise in each other the same love for language, memory, and cultural crossing.