People

Christina Im

Christina Im headshot

About

Hi! My name is Christina (she/her), and I’m excited and grateful to be serving as a Peer Arts Advisor this year. I’m from Portland, Oregon (and frankly don’t shut up about it), and I care fiercely about poetry, pop music, em-dashes, and Korean food. On the academic side, I’m a junior in the sociology department hoping to pursue a certificate in creative writing. Outside of class, I’m one of the co-presidents of Ellipses Slam Poetry, the largest spoken word group on campus, and a music director for VTone, Princeton’s East Asian music group.

Never having taken a creative writing class before college (the only one offered at my high school was canceled as soon as I signed up), I couldn’t make head or tail of The Craft of Poetry until I came to Princeton. I arrived eager to learn, but I found myself overwhelmed by the huge breadth of opportunities that the Lewis Center offers. I dove into a poetry workshop hoping for the best—and one creative writing class every semester later, I’ve grown as a poet and human thanks to the amazing faculty and classmates I’ve met here. The most valuable lesson that I’ve learned from my creative writing coursework is that the trepidation I was feeling at the start of my first year is healthy. Getting comfortable with the unknown—and with the prospect of not being perfect the first time around—is hard for Princeton students. My hope is that I can help you find the footing you need to get started or move forward from where you’re at.

I’m also really interested in poetry as a project that’s grounded in our sociopolitical realities. My identity as a queer Korean American has always informed and inflamed my work. But even beyond my personal context, both my major in sociology and my pursuit of poetry have challenged me to bear witness to the world critically and empathetically. If you’re curious about balancing social science and creative writing, or about making the political more visible in creative work, drop me a line!

And predictably, I love to talk reading. Just this past year I’ve had my life upended (in the best way!) by writers like Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Victoria Chang, Lucille Clifton, E.J. Koh, and Natalie Diaz. I also started out writing young adult fantasy fiction and will have a lifelong soft spot for the genre.

Feel free to ask me about the Princeton slam poetry scene, schedule planning (as ridiculous as this makes me sound, I enjoy it), course applications, poetry recommendations, or anything else that might move you! I want to be a resource to you and hopefully a friend as you make creative writing at Princeton your own.

 

Class of '22

Program in Creative Writing

Residential College

Forbes

Email Address

c.im@princeton.edu