From the publisher’s website: The poems of Ko Hyeong-Ryeol are mostly inspired by the landscapes and cityscapes of Korea, occasionally echoing journeys to other lands. The poet allows his memories and imagination free reign so that his poems escape from the limits of naturalistic description and invite the reader to sense both the interrelatedness and … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 112)
Though flowers fall I have never forgotten you
From the publisher’s website: Don’t cry. To be lonely is to be human. To go on living is to endure loneliness. Do not wait in vain for the phone call that never comes. When snow falls, walk on snowy paths, when rain falls, walk on rainy paths. A black-breasted longbill is watching you from the … [Read More]
Someone Always in the Corner of My Eye
From the publisher’s website: A Korean voice from a new generation of cutting-edge poets that will appeal to younger writers and readers. Shim includes deeply personal poems, lyric experiments, and strong social statements that reflects the voices of a community. His grandiose illusions and underprivileged whispers challenge us to consider our relationships. [Read More]
A Letter Not Sent
From the publisher’s website: Farewell, my dear, may you walk alone down the dawn paths of this age, encounter the freedom of love and death, into the icy river winds, without even a tomb, into the fierce blizzards, without even a song, may you go flowing, flowing like a petal. Your tears will soon become … [Read More]
Fifteen Seconds without Sorrow
From the publisher’s website: Like many younger Korean poets, SHIM BO-SEON writes in an allusive, indirect style about topics that are in themselves familiar, eating rice, taking off clothes, living in an apartment block, struggling with human relationships. He captures some sparkling moments of joys and sorrows, hopes and frustrations that have been concealed in … [Read More]
Poor Love Machine
For decades, Kim Hyesoon — a leading figure in contemporary Korean poetry and trans-national feminist literature — has represented the capabilities of a poet who works across, around, and through the borders of nations and of language itself. Many of her works have been translated, with overwhelming support from Don Mee Choi, into English. With … [Read More]
Night-Sky Checkerboard
From the publisher’s website: Oh Sae-young’s first English language release translated from the original Korean, Night-Sky Checkerboard, features heart-rendering, explorative poems fixated on existence and humanity’s scarring impact on nature through industrial society. Night-Sky Checkerboard introduces English-language readers to the imagistic lyricism of a Korean master at the peak of his powers. As a young poet … [Read More]
No Flower Blooms Without Wavering
From the publisher’s website: Description It has been a joy to translate poems by one of Korea’s most widely loved poets. The poems of Do Jong-Hwan do not need much explanation or commentary. They are not difficult to understand but offer glimpses of wisdom, lessons learned from life’s greatest joys and deepest pains. Koreans love … [Read More]
Cheer Up, Femme Fatale
From the publisher’s website: “In Kim Yideum‘s elegant and grotesque poetry, objective cool, violence and despairing megalomania all rage with the crystal-clear bitterness of vulnerability. When you read her beautiful, terrifying poems, you will go to pieces.” — Aase Berg “Kim Yi-Deum’s poetry is the landscape of confession. The confession flows inside the landscape and … [Read More]
Request Line at Noon
From the publisher’s website: “We were friendly, Inconsiderate. Everyone moved forward to an end. You lost your love And I skipped rope. The surging music At the minimum altitude of my soul; The music from the “Request Line At Noon” We were always Flowing away regularly.…” —Lee Jangwook Translation by Sun Kim and Tsering Wangmo [Read More]
I Am a Season That Does Not Exist in the World
Kim Kyung Ju’s poetry operates in a world where no one seems to belong: “the living are born in the dead people’s world, and the dead are born in the living.” Already in its thirtieth edition in Korea, I AM A SEASON THAT DOES NOT EXIST IN THE WORLD is one of the most important … [Read More]
Portrait of a Suburbanite
From the publisher’s website: This volume is a translation of Choi Seung-ja’s 1991 anthology titled Portrait of a Suburbanite. Published in the series of “100 Prominent Korean Poets” by Mirae Press, the poems in this volume were selected from four of Choi’s previous works titled, Love of This Age (1981), Merry Diary (1984), House of … [Read More]
Wild Apple
From the publisher’s website: “HeeDuk Ra’s poems evoke thoughts about time and language . . . Through her work, time does not glide nor stand on the edge. It crumbles.”—SeokJo Gang, literary critic Wild Apple takes the reader to cultural and intellectual experiences: Native American burial mounds, cremations at the Ganges River, the Paris morgue … [Read More]
Patterns
From the publisher’s website: Patterns, by Korean poet Lee Si-young, represents the first, single volume, full-length translation of his poetry in English, a remarkable collection of his work dating from 1976 to 2007. This new collection reveals him as a major figure in contemporary Korean writing. Born in Gurye, South Jeolla Province, in 1949, Lee … [Read More]
Maninbo: Peace & War
From the publisher’s website: Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation Ko Un has long been a living legend in Korea, both as a poet and as a person. Allen Ginsberg once wrote, ‘Ko Un is a magnificent poet, combination of Buddhist cognoscente, passionate political libertarian, and naturalist historian.’ Maninbo (Ten Thousand Lives) is the title of a … [Read More]
Beating on Iron
From the publisher’s website: Kim Soo-Bok has been publishing poetry for 40 years in South Korea. This volume contains translations of the poet’s own selection from his entire life’s work, representing poems marked by compassion and sensitivity, which often adopt a surrealist position in presenting their relationships between the poet and the surrounding world. Many … [Read More]