A Story About One is a Story About All: Melanie Hyo-In Han's My Dear Yeast Reviewed by Kristy Snedden

A Story About One is a Story About All: 
A Review of My Dear Yeast by Melanie Hyo-In Han by Kristy Snedden


You don’t have to be a TCK (third culture kid) to immerse yourself in Melanie Hyo-In Han’s debut collection My Dear Yeast. Han takes us on a holographic journey with images from Korea, Africa, and the United States using stark imagery and a personal vulnerability that transports the reader into each of her complex worlds. Han covers significant ground in this collection that expands on her chapbook, Sandpaper Tongue, Parchment Lips, published in 2021.

    The collection opens with “Drought, 1999” and captures the reader with lines that reveal the truth and horror of drought, lines like “…i lay there/on the ground, one ear/against the land’s pounding/heat, drowned out/by the pounding/of my heart//sandpaper tongue/parchment lips/dry and cracked…” and “…i can still hear/the creaking, the crying/see the image that is/scorched forever/in my mind…”  This first poem is followed by the powerful “Waiting for Water in Morogoro” where Han shows the reader through the shape of her lines the experience of the long wait for water and how  “…half a mile/has turned into/three miles…”. These first two poems foreshadow the depth and importance of what evolves through this collection and demonstrate Han’s profound understanding of poetic form and multiple languages.

    In “To Miss Tranquist” Han reveals the impact of having a name that a teacher not only finds difficult to pronounce, but subsequently avoids even trying to pronounce.  In this poem and others, Han jolts us with lines like , “…All I ever wanted/was to be called on without hesitation, to be//greeted every day by name. “Melanie,” meaning/”dark,” that’s what I am to you…”

    Throughout the collection, Han speaks to us in English, in Korean, in Swahili, in lyricism, and in narrative. Moving from poem to poem, we move from country to country, from event to event, and from identity to identity. She explores the internal conflict of different selves experiencing multiple worlds through the lenses of culture, family, love, trauma, community, and the pandemic.  In the title poem, “My Dear Yeast,” Han reveals her relationship with her Korean grandmother and her childhood experience of her grandmother’s return to Korea. In an especially intimate section she writes, “…So you went/back to your homeland,/a land I didn’t feel/was my home,/with nothing but/6,381 miles, 12 hours/on the plane, and/hurt between us.”

    In “and you told me” Han’s internal map shines when she writes, “…but I am a Crowned Eagle,/Raptor of Africa,/Most Powerful of Birds,/Largest of Eagles,/Seer of All Things…” as she explores the powerful stance she took in an abusive relationship. (Don’t miss this poem – Han displays a masterful use of line breaks and punctuation to portray the relationship). This strong image of self is followed by a poem named “9” that describes Han’s experience traveling alone from Tanzania to Kenya,  to her “new bed” in a dorm. She says, “…I didn’t cry because I was a big girl, age 9…” and later in the same poem, “I sat on the side of the road and I didn’t cry/because I was a big girl…” and later “…I crawled into my new bed that night,/the smell of Tanzanian jasmine blossoms was gone,/taken over by mustiness then by saltiness/as I silently cried into the pillow, not old enough.” 

    If you have read this far, you are beginning to get a taste of the complexity of Han, of this collection, and of her ability to join images and experiences to create a living mosaic of her experiences growing up in multiple countries and cultures. Further enriching the collection is her acrostic poem, “My Childhood Alphabet,” in which each line is a perfect image from her experience. 

    Han doesn’t shy away from revealing deeply personal events when she writes “Holding On,” an account of difficulties that occurred at a specific home. She finishes that poem with words that will resonate with many who have experienced childhood trauma when she writes, “i realized i never had/a normal childhood/but i didn’t want to/believe it so i lied/to myself to feel/a bit better for/just a little longer.”

    It is impossible to convey the depth of this collection in a book review.  Han is an accomplished writer and scholar (https://melaniehan.com/about), but there is something more going on here. She injects a magical tonic into this work.  It is a collection that will bring healing to anyone who has experienced trauma in their lives. Furthermore, as a trauma therapist myself, I will be encouraging my colleagues and students to immerse themselves in this collection to develop a felt sense of how trauma can impact an individual.  

    Despite tackling many heavy subjects, Han’s self-containment and her refusal to be ruled by trauma is reflected throughout her poetry. In “Tell Me” (the last poem in the book), she tells us about a stay with her grandmother in Korea and narrates the experience with a skillful combination of English and Korean.  In the final stanza she writes, “…It was her way of letting me know/that she cared, but all I/ever wanted was to hear…” and it is in this last beautiful poem that her “i” is transformed to “I.” 


My Dear Yeast is available from Milk and Cake Press
You can find out more about Melanie Hyo-In Han by visiting her website at: https://melaniehan.com 



Kristy Snedden (she/her) has been a trauma psychotherapist for forty-plus years and writing poetry since 2020. Her work received her an Honorable Mention in the 90 th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is a recent recipient of the Small Orange Press Emerging Woman Poet prize. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in various print and electronic journals and anthologies, including Contemporary Verse 2, storySouth, Door Is A Jar, Pensive, Anti-Heroin Chic, Power of the Pause Anthology, Green Ink Poetry, and Snapdragon. In her free time, she loves hiking in the Appalachian Mountains near her home in Georgia or hanging out with her husband listening to their dogs tell tall tales.

Born in Korea and raised in East Africa, Melanie Hyo-In Han (she/her) recently moved to the U.K. where she’s a Ph.D. candidate and author of My Dear Yeast and Sandpaper Tongue, Parchment Lips. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Han has received awards from “Boston in 100 Words,” Valiant Scribe, The Lyric Magazine, and elsewhere.