#korean poetry

[feral-ballad]

Lee Hyemi, tr. by Soje, from Unexpected Vanilla; “Inside the tower”

[Text ID: “Why am I / inside this absence”]

#lee hyemi #absence #excerpts #writings #literature #poetry #fragments #selections #words #quotes #poetry collection #typography #poetry in translation #korean literature #korean poetry

[icecreamwithjackdaniels]

"When I love, I make you my enemy."

— a line from a poem by Songi (from "Songs of the Kisaeng: Courtesan Poetry of the Last Korean Dynasty", translated and introduced by Constantine Contogenis and Wolhee Choe)

#Songi #literature #korean literature #spilled ink #poem #poetry #korean poetry #joseon #courtesan #korean #gisaeng #quote #quotes #book quotes #lit #books #books and libraries #love #enemy

[env0writes]

NaPoWriMo Vol. 3, 17.28.24 “Sijo - Child of Labor"

The sun rises every day to begin laborious hikes Over valleys, hills, cities, and towns to hunt for work Green is the world awoken too; red is the evening to sleep

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists!   Photo by my friend Mika

#writeblrcafe #poeticstories #poetryportal #twc #spilled ink #wutispotlight #writtenconsiderations #sijo #korean poetry #korean poem #micropoem #alt lit #burningmuse #napowrimo #napowrimo vol. 3 #national poetry writing month #april #env0 writes #twcpoetry #writerscreed #abstractcommunity #savage words #smittenbypoetry #poetscreed #poetryriot #poets and writers

[loneberry]

Poets partying

(Bohemian Tea Party, Woodberry Poetry Room)

Christina Davis gives a speech about the poetry room's activities + I am caught close-eyed catching up with poet Fanny Howe + selfie with poet and Woodberry fellow Rosa Alcalá for our mutual friends.

Poets grieving

(Memorial for Ukrainian writer and poet Victoria Amelina)

A moving night of readings, remembrances, and reflections on war and the Ukrainian literary community. Also ran into Fanny again (3 times in 5 days--I forgot how much I missed seeing Fanny at all things poetry & film related in Boston/Cambridge).

Ukrainian poet Iryna Shuvalova's reading and speech was utterly devastating.

Poets reading and translating

(Kim Hyesoon reading with translator Don Mee Choi, introduced by poet and translator Jack Jung)

Was deviously thrilled to get this pic of Jack that also captured Don Mee snapping Jack's photo. Don Mee read her English translations of Kim Hyesoon's poems.

The queen herself, Kim Hyesoon!

I've been a Kim Hyesoon and Don Mee Choi fan for over a decade, so this reading was a real treat for me. Could not pass up the opportunity to buy this gorgeous signed broadside, which tickles my bird-woman fancy!

#poetry #Woodberry poetry room #kim hyesoon #don mee choi #literature #korean poetry #ukrainian poetry #victoria amelina #Iryna Shuvalova #jack jung #fanny howe #Rosa Alcalá #Christina Davis

[mossy-green-aka-ferrythem]

Also by the way y'all I have read one of Yi Sang's works, "The Wings", truly beautiful I must say. While I do not comprehend all of it, I think I understand enough for it to hold meaning.

The end... where he realizes how empty and hollow his life has been... but then feels an ache below his arms, where his wings once sprouted out... I felt an ache like this just now, right in this moment, as I am consumed with hollow despair... with that ache I am certain that some way or another...

I will sprout wings and fly myself in some way shape or form.

#yi sang #classical literature #korean poetry #sang yi #tagging project moon now because I know for a fact that I will find an audience in those tags: #project moon #projmoon #limbus company #lcb #limbus #yi sang lcb

[skysweptpoet]

"For a poem to be so easily written,

when life is so difficult,

is a matter of shame."

-A Poem Easily Written by Dongju Yoon, translated by Suh Hong Won

#literature #poetry #yoon dongju #yun dong ju #words #writeblr #art #quote #korean poetry #korea #culture

[maggiecheungs]

i was reading the 6th issue of chogwa (an e-zine featuring one Korean poem & multiple English translations by different translators) and i am in love with all the different renderings of the final line of Park Seo-won’s poem “Somang/소망”

#chogwa #soje #translation #korean translation #Park Seo-won #somang #ellis reads #poetry #korean poetry #translation studies #feeling a lot of things..... this is literally its own poem #소망 #박서원 #i'm so enamoured of this project #chogwa means 'excess' which is basically the theme and inspiration behind the whole thing #soje describes their inspiration as being a desire to free translators/ions from the weight of having to be *everything* #to quote their statement about it: #'The existence of other translations can embolden us as translators dare us to be a little cheekier. Translating by could not should! #The more translations there are the more room they create for play and experimentation.' #which i really really love #particularly when i think about how there's a pressure on less-commonly translated languages to be 'definitive' translations #authors and translators from certain literary cultures are burdened with the expectation to be and do ~everything~ #a whole new (old) form of literary and linguistic tokenism upheld by the western publishing industry :/ #so i love this movement to push back against 'the definitive' in translation and instead embrace a multiplicity of voices and renderings #and in layering those voices there's the potential to create something more profound and beautiful than would otherwise be possible #<3

[commajade]

new issue of my fave zine is out! chogwa is a korean-english poetry translation zine where many translators translate a poem from korean to english and there's descriptions of the different choices they made. this issue is especially interesting because the original poem is written in jejueo, the indigenous language of jeju island that has been suppressed since the U.S. backed anticommunist massacres that killed 20% of the island's population from 1948 to 1954. the poet hwang geum-nyeo is still alive and in her 80s, a survivor of the massacres.

here is a link to the free booklet about the april 3rd uprising and jeju massacre

#korean literature #korean poetry #korean history #translation #chogwa

[optreee]

Used a mix of Netflix subtitles and my own translation/research for the poem featured in Episode 12. Love it so much ❤️🔥

연탄 한 장

 ― 안도현

 

또 다른 말도 많고 많지만

삶이란

나 아닌 그 누구에게

기꺼이 연탄 한 장 되는 것.

 

방구들 선득선득해지는 날부터 봄까지

조선 팔도 거리에서 제일 아름다운 것은

연탄차가 부릉부릉

힘쓰며 언덕길 오르는 거라네.

해야 할 일이 무엇인가를 알고 있다는 듯이

연탄은, 일단 제 몸에 불이 옮겨 붙었다 하면

하염없이 뜨거워지는 것

매일 따스한 밥과 국물 퍼먹으면서도 몰랐네.

온몸으로 사랑하고 나면

한 덩이 재로 쓸쓸하게 남는 게 두려워

여태껏 나는 그 누구에게 연탄 한 장도 되지 못하였네.

 

생각하면

삶이란

나를 산산이 으깨는 일.

 

눈 내려 세상이 미끄러운 어느 이른 아침에

나 아닌 그 누가 마음 놓고 걸어갈

그 길을 만들 줄도 몰랐었네, 나는.

One Sheet (Lump) of Coal

- Ahn Do-hyun

Though there are many other ways to say it,

Life is

To willingly become a lump of coal

For someone other than myself.

From the day the bedroom floor becomes chilly to spring,

The most beautiful thing on the streets of Korea’s eight provinces

Is the coal truck driving along

Using all its strength to climb up the hill.

As if it knows that it has an important task to do

As for the coal, once its body catches fire,

It burns endlessly

I didn't know this, even as I ate warm rice and soup every day.

After loving someone with my whole being

I was afraid of being left alone as a lonely pile of ashes,

So to this day, I haven't become a single lump of coal for anyone.

When I think about it,

Life is

The work of crumbling myself into millions of pieces.

On an early morning when the snow had fallen and made the world slippery,

I didn’t even know how to pave a way on the street

Not for myself, but so that others could walk with ease.

#extraordinary attorney woo #extraordinary attorney woo spoilers #a lump of coal #Korean poetry #but why did this crumble me into a million pieces #extraordinary attorney woo episode 12

[sar-miche]

{death will breathe and grow within you again} from - "Death" by Kim Ch'un-su; translated by Kim Jong-Gil The Snow Falling on Chagall's Village

#poetry #poem #quote #korean #kim chunsu #grief #death #literature #book quotes #books and libraries #breathe #grow #korean poetry #sadcore

[feral-ballad]

Lee Soho, tr. by Soje, from Catcalling; “Page 29 of my sorrowful legend”

[Text ID: “From the start it was just the two of us / Me and the gap in between”]

#lee soho #excerpts #writings #literature #poetry #fragments #selections #words #quotes #poetry collection #typography #poetry in translation #korean literature #korean poetry

[icecreamwithjackdaniels]

"Old mountain, here you are still, but these are not the same waters:

they have not begun to age, having flowed on each day, each night.

My lover has been pure as water, coming to me, going away."

- Hwang Jini (Joseon, 1506-1567), Old Mountain (from "Songs of the Kisaeng: Courtesan Poetry of the Last Korean Dynasty", translated and introduced by Constantine Contogenis and Wolhee Choe)

#Hwang Jini #poem #poetry #korean poetry #joseon #courtesan #literature #spilled ink #korean #gisaeng #korean literature #quotes #book quotes #quote #lit #books #books and libraries #love #water #mountain

[dalstudy]

죽음과 기쁨의 그림자

나를 악당으로 그리십시오

세계 지배를 열망하는 악당.

나를 가사처럼 쓰십시오

기쁨과 어둠의 기운 속에서

꿈을 이루어가며

정상으로 향하는 그들의 여정의 가사.

나는 자유롭고 싶습니다.

완전히 자유롭다는 건 어떤 것일까요?

보여주십시오

당신의 말과

몸짓과 상상력을 동원하여

부패한 세상을 밝히기 위해.

 THE SHADOW OF DEATH AND DELIGHT

paint me like a villain,

aching for world domination.

write me as the lyrics

of their journey to the top,

achieving their dreams

in an aura of delight and darkness.

i want to feel alive.

how is it to be so free?

show me,

use your words,

your movements and imagery

to light up a rotting world.

#my poetry #korean langblr #korean studyblr #langblr #studyblr #korean study #korean poetry #poetry #poet #author #writer #korean language #korean language blog #korea #korean

[soo-hyuki]

노라 - 나혜석

Nora - Na Hyeseok

노라

Nora

나는 인형이었네

I was a doll

아버지의 착한 딸인 인형으로

남편의 착한 아내인 인형으로

그네들의 노리개였네

I was a doll who was my father's good daughter

I was a doll who was my husband's good wife

I was their plaything

노라를 놓아라

Let Nora go

순순히 놓아주고

높은 장벽을 열고 깊은 규문을 열고

자유의 대기 중에 노라를 놓아라.

Let her go freely and

Raze the high wall and open culture and learning

Into the freedom's air let Nora go

나는 사람이라네

I am human

남편의 아내 되기 전에

자녀의 어미 되기 전에

아버지의 딸이 되기 전에

첫째로 사람이라네.

Before I am my husband's wife

Before I am my children's mother

Before I am my father's daughter

I am human first

나는 사람이로세.

I am human

구속이 이미 끊쳤도다.

자유의 길이 열렸도다.

천부의 힘은 넘치네.

My arrest is already over

My road to freedom is open

My heaven-given strength overflows

아아 소녀들이여

깨어서 뒤를 따라 오라. 일어나 힘을 발하여라.

새날의 광명이 비쳤네

O young women

Awake and follow me arise and let your power flow

Brilliant is this new day's light

Poem by Na Hyeseok

Translated by Jack Jung

#poetry #poems #korean poem #korean poetry #na hyeseok #nora #나혜석 #노라 #시

[agirlnamedbone]

—Kim Kyung Ju, tr. Jake Levine (I Am a Season That Does Not Exist in the World, 2015)

#poetry #poem #prose poetry #prose poem #horrror #spider #Kim kyung ju #korean poetry #microfiction #experimental literature #surrealism #Jake Levine #op

[sifueraestamivoz]

There are also Wounds on Blades of Grass

There are also wounds on blades of grass, there are also wounds on petals.

As I walk along the field paths where you and I once walked together, when I sit by the field path and gaze at the glow of the sunset wounded blades of grass wave their hands.

Petals with many wounds smell sweetest.

-Jeong Ho-seung

#korean poetry #love in contract #kdrama quotes #poem #poetry #words #grass #petals #suffering #hard times #the past #struggle #life quotes #kdrama #park min young #go kyung pyo