For This And Other Cruelties by Youna Kwak
[A Review by Heather Beier]
[For This and Other Cruelties by Younka Kwak. Published by University of Iowa Press. Released 22nd April 2025.]
‘ I am preparing to write a book about the death of a mother. To write such a book requires a mother. ’
Youna Kwak’s For This And Other Cruelties is a poetic foray into the maternal; shifting between lyrical mothering paradoxes and ruminating on what it means to be a mother and to be mothered. The book, which switches between prose poems and lyrical exploration, undulates syntactically across the page and roots itself on the tip of the tongue.
‘ Soon the horror mantra turns from dirage to bright song: left my babies alone now my babies are deaaaaaaad. Wouldn’t mother love to be a bad mother? How badly must you mother to be ousted from the garden? Isn’t bad mothering a how shove of relief? ’
Maggie Nelson quoting Winnicott echoes this theoretical questioning in The Argonauts (2015), ‘good enough mothering’ she writes, referring to how in order to be a good mother, a mother should be good enough; a mother should fail, though in ‘tolerable’ ways. Youna Kwak takes this further, lamenting motherhood, or interrogating the construction of motherhood within contemporary society; bluntly integrating the nature of gendered inheritance and the reality of the cruelties caused as a consequence.
‘ Being born means being pushed, pulled, or cut out of a womb, meaning, mother becomes in the moment she says Out. ’
Youna Kwak unspools the pervasive social logics through the exploration of the domestic. Her writing births an often times humorous and horrifying examination of race, gender, class and the familial. There is something unequivocally unnerving, or grotesque, about the poems; the musicality of the work is peppered with deliberating baiting, or shocking, depictions and works to demonstrate the inherently monstrous mothering phenomena which is multi-faceted and encompasses the physical and emotional experiences.
‘ Mother always came last as if it were her destiny to try to be forgotten, but even destiny is rememberingly narrative. ’
[An ARC was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review]

Gosh, I liked this. I mean, leaving my problems with motherhood and mothers, I found so much of the writing to hit the nail on the head, which in poetry, I think, is one of the best feelings and when I feel a poem is worthwhile. Some of the more experimental styles were difficult for me to really get into, but that's because I'm simply an idiot, and shouldn't fault the poet for the internet giving the power to randomly comment on their work in a role of unprecedented self-flagellation we now allow due to rapid globalization, ever-shrinking attention spans, and the concept that someone else's opinion of a book will sink or soar it.

Thanks for the ARC and space to have an existential meltdown. xoxo.

Youna’s first segment of her poetry and verse starts with strong about mothers and mothering. The imagery is bold and concrete. I loved the play with diction in this segment. This gave me high hopes for the rest of the collection. What fell flat for me is the lack of rhythm in the future verses and segments. I feel like it flows but not lyrically – much more like a very brief story. Conversations about bad mothers and dealing with social pressures were great – but the way the content was approached did not grab me like I had hoped.

               What keeps this poetry collection at three stars is that Youna is not afraid to dabble with experimental forms. As the poetry progresses and gets less rhythmic – the forms become more experimental. The words are arranged in many ways that reads as a list, they read quickly, but that makes them interesting. I wish more of the poetry in the collection was experimental in this way. It was fresh air throughout the collection that fell partially stagnant. Thank you Netgalley and the University of Iowa Press for an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review!