The Poetry Project

People

Don Mee Choi

Don Mee Choi is shown cropped from the chest up in a square black-and-white photograph. She is standing to the right of the frame, wearing a light jacked, and looking at the camera. Her hair is loose past her shoulders. There is foliage and water in the near background.
© Jay Weaver

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Don Mee Choi is the author of DMZ Colony (Wave Books, 2020), which received the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry. Her work also includes Hardly War (Wave Books, 2016), The Morning News Is Exciting (Action Books, 2010) and several chapbooks and pamphlets of poems and essays. She is a recipient of fellowships from MacArthur, Guggenheim, Lannan, and Whiting Foundations. She was a fellow of the 2019 DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program and 2021 Guest Picador Professor-Leipzig University. During her stay in Berlin, Choi had an art installation at daadgalerie: DMZ Colony: Exhibition of a Book. She has translated several collections of Kim Hyesoon’s poetry: Anxiety of Words (Zephyr, 2006), Mommy Must Be a Fountain of Feathers (Action Books, 2008), All the Garbage of the World, Unite! (Action Books, 2011), I’m OK, I’m Pig! (Bloodaxe Books, 2014) and others, including the 2019 International Poetry Prize winning book Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018) and most recently, Phantom Pain Wings (New Directions, 2023). After working in Seattle for a couple of decades, Choi now lives in Berlin with her husband Jay Weaver, a musician and schoolteacher. Her forthcoming book is Mirror Nation (Wave Books, April 2024).