Emily Jungmin Yoon is an Assistant Professor of Korean literature in the East Asian Languages and Literatures Department, and is a Cooperating Faculty member for the English Department.
Yoon's most recent poetry collection is Find Me as the Creature I Am (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024). Her first poetry collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco, 2018), winner of the Devil's Kitchen Reading Award and a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, was translated into Korean by Han Yujoo and published by Yolimwon in 2020. Yoon serves as the poetry editor for The Margins, the digital magazine of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.
Yoon is co-translating with David Krolikoski the Korean poet Kim Hyesoon’s poetic theory essay collection, whose title is tentatively translated to To Write as a Woman in English. Yoon is also working on a critical manuscript called Enclosed Reading: A Feminist Method for Korean and Korean American Women’s Poetry, 1987-2019.
Publications
Books
Find Me As the Creature I Am: Poems. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, and London: Atlantic Books, 2024 and 2025.
A Cruelty Special to Our Species: Poems. New York: Ecco/HarperCollins, 2018. (Korean Translation: Uri chongjok ŭi t’ŭkpyŏrhan chaninham. [우리 종족의 특별한 잔인함] Translated by Yujoo Han. Paju: Yolimwon, 2020)
Chapbooks
Against Healing: Nine Korean Poets. Edited and translated from Korean. Translating Feminisms. London: Tilted Axis Press, 2019.
Ordinary Misfortunes: Poems. North Adams: Tupelo Press, 2017.
Essays
“I Became Asian When I Left Asia.” The Cut, April 2021.
“The Poetic Consequences of K-Pop.” The Paris Review, February 2019.
Individual Poems (Selected)
“Evolution.” The New Republic, 2024.
“Love and Death Speaking at Once.” The Believer, Spring/Summer 2023.
“Related Matters.” The New Yorker, March 2021.
“What Carries Us.” Poetry, 2020.
“Autopsy.” New York Times Magazine, March 2018.
“Time, in Whales.” The New Yorker, May 2017.
Translation (Selected)
Kim, Hyesoon. “Mom’s Smell Space Molecular Therapy” and four poems.Venice Biennale, 2023.
Lee, Kyungsu. “From the Priestess of the Sun to the Poet of the Earth.”Korean Literature Now, Summer 2022.
Kim, Seung-hee. “Freedom from Sudden Rain” and nine poems. Korean Literature Now, Summer 2022.
Kim, Hyesoon. “The Illusion of the Mother and the Virgin.” Puerto Del Sol,Spring 2019.
Baek, Seok. “From the North” and two poems. Bat City Review, 2018.
Areas of Interest
Poetry, Asian and Asian American literature, gender, feminism, transnational literature, and translation.
Awards
(Selected)
(2020) Kate Tufts Discovery Award Finalist - Claremont Graduate University
(2019) Devil's Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry - Southern Illinois University Carbondale
(2019) Theodore Morrison Fellowship in Poetry - Bread Loaf Writers' Conference)
(2017) Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, Poetry Foundation
Education
(2022) PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations (Korean Literature), University of Chicago
(2018) MA in East Asian Languages and Civilizations (Korean Literature), University of Chicago
(2015) MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry), New York University
(2013) BA in English (Creative Writing Concentration) and Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Courses
Spring Semester 2025
- ENG-313: Types of Creative Writing
Fall Semester 2024
- ENG-411: Poetry Workshop
Spring Semester 2024
- ENG-313: Types of Creative Writing
Fall Semester 2023
- ENG-411: Poetry Workshop