Poet of the Month: Kim Yideum (Korean version)
Katy Lewis Hood interviews The Missing Slate’s Poet of the Month, Kim Yideum, with Kim Yideum’s answers displayed in the original Korean.
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Woman
“She comes each morning/ with the sea on her head.// Fresh oysters for sale, fresh oysters!/ She cries like the sunlight…”
By Kang Ūn-gyo, translated from Korean by Kevin O’Rourke.
Spider
“What I throw out to the world/ is a silver thread, that thin line I throw…”
By Kang Ŭn-gyo, translated from Korean by Ann Y. Choi.
Ghost School
“I teach a class to the newly enrolled ghosts…/I make them practice so they won’t be shocked even if they leave no footprints on the
snowfield/ I make them practice falling asleep floating in air/ I teach them such things as how to overcome melancholy inside a coffin…”
By Kim Hyesoon, translated from Korean by Don Mee Choi.
When the Plug Gets Unplugged
“you and I begin to rot in the open. I can’t leave the lights on for you any longer. We can no longer look each other in the face…”
By Kim Hyesoon, translated from Korean by Don Mee Choi.
Fluxfilm No. 4 (Lesbian)
“A writer has his hands deep in his pockets, pulling out his machine guns/ and rifles.”
By Kim Yideum, translated from Korean by Ji Yoon Lee, Don Mee Choi and Johannes Göransson.
Distribution Center
“I’m cargo, a shipping container dripping with fetid water./ I’m hastily packed and transported, then shipped over.”
By Kim Yideum, translated from Korean by Ji Yoon Lee, Don Mee Choi and Johannes Göransson.
Seven Years After My Literary Debut
“Poetry? I don’t have a clue about it anymore./ Dedications and contributions? To whom, for what?”
By Kim Yideum, translated from Korean by Ji Yoon Lee, Don Mee Choi and Johannes Göransson.
Nameless Woman
“Up in some cleft in the hills/ I’d go to be a nameless woman./ I’d put up gourds on the thatched roof,/ Plant squash and pumpkins in the clearing,/ Train up a hedge of wild roses,/ Let the skies down into the yard…”
By No Ch’Ån-myÅng, translated from Korean by David R. McCann.
Performer, Male
“the dawn light, as it spreads across our road,/ like the reed horn that calls out the ones who want to see:/ mixing sadness and happiness, it all opens out before us…”
By No Ch’Ån-myÅng, translated from Korean by David R. McCann.