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bummler's review
5.0
Good poetry forces you to slow down, forces you to take your time with it. I found myself reading poems out of this book, then reading them again. This poetry isn't soft. It sits with you for awhile.
spacestationtrustfund's review
4.0
This is my favourite line of poetry by [a:Choe Seungja|7333714|최승자|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]:
Here's a quick sample of Cathy Park Hong's and Kim Won-Chung's translation, using the poem 『일찍이 나는』 (translated as "Already I"):
Compare against an earlier English translation of the same poem, this time by Song Chae-Pyong and Darcy L. Brandel:
Actually I changed my mind, let's do another one. This is the poem 『개 같은 가을이』 (translated by Park Hong and Kim as "Dog Autumn"):
아, 맞아 죽이고 싶어요 / 맞아 죽어가는 개의 가죽으로 만든 카펫이되고 싶어요.This is a short book, only around 80 pages, including the introduction. Choe Seungja (최승자) has written nine books of poetry to date, along with two books of prose; few of her poems have been translated into English, or any other language, despite her position as an incredibly influential feminist poet of the 1980s in Korea. Her books are quite difficult to find outside of Korea; I was lucky enough to find a physical copy of my favourite of her books, 『내 무덤, 푸르고』(1991).
Here's a quick sample of Cathy Park Hong's and Kim Won-Chung's translation, using the poem 『일찍이 나는』 (translated as "Already I"):
Already I was nothing;The original Korean:
Mold formed on stale bread,
repeated piss stains on the wall,
a maggot-covered corpse
a thousand years old.
No parent has raised me.
I was nothing from early on,
Sleeping in a rat’s hole, nibbling
on the mosquito’s liver,
I was always dying everywhere.
So don’t say you know me
when we cross paths
like falling stars.
Idon’tknowyou, Idon’tknowyou,
Youthouthere, happiness,
You, thou, there, love.
That I am alive?
It is no more than an endless
rumor.
일찍이 나는 아무것도 아니었다.The word "일찍이" means early; I'm not sure why it was translated as already. The first line could therefore be read as "in the beginning I was nothing." The fourth line in the Korean (the fourth and fifth in the English), "아직도 구더기에 뒤덮인 천년 전에 죽은 시체," is difficult to move into English if you're trying to preserve any of the original poeticism whatsoever: literally translated, word-for-word, the line would turn into something like, "still maggots-on covered millennium before dead corpse," which is barely recognisable as a sentence, much less a poetic one. If you're wondering whether or not those smushed-together words are in the original, they are; the twelfth line in the Korean text is "나는너를모른다" repeated twice: that's 나는 (I) 너를 (you) 모른다 (do not know).
마른 빵에 핀 곰팡이
벽에다 누고 또 눈 지린 오줌 자국
아직도 구더기에 뒤덮인 천년 전에 죽은 시체.
아무 부모도 나를 키워 주지 않았다
쥐구멍에서 잠들고 벼룩의 간을 내먹고
아무 데서나 하염없이 죽어 가면서
일찍이 나는 아무것도 아니었다.
떨어지는 유성처럼 우리가
잠시 스쳐갈 때 그러므로,
나를 안다고 말하지 말라.
나는너를모른다 나는너를모른다,
너당신그대, 행복
너, 당신, 그대, 사랑
내가 살아 있다는 것,
그것은 영원한 루머에 지나지 않는다.
Compare against an earlier English translation of the same poem, this time by Song Chae-Pyong and Darcy L. Brandel:
From early on I was nothing.I'm really not sure which I prefer. The differences are mostly subtle—"falling stars," "falling meteors"; "that I exist," "that I am alive"; "no parent has raised me," "no parents reared me"; "sleeping in a rat's hole," "sleeping in a rat hole"; "an endless rumor," "an everlasting rumor": what's the meaningful difference between these, if any?
Mold flowering on dry bread
wet urine stains on a wall, layers upon layers of urine
a corpse dead over a thousand years
still covered with maggots.
No parents reared me.
I lived sleeping in a rat hole and leeching off of the wretched
dying anywhere endlessly
from early on I was nothing.
So when we brush by momentarily
like falling meteors
do not tell me you know me
Idonotknowyou Idonotknowyou
YouThouBeloved, Happiness
You, Thou, Beloved, Love
That I exist
is nothing more than an everlasting rumor.
Actually I changed my mind, let's do another one. This is the poem 『개 같은 가을이』 (translated by Park Hong and Kim as "Dog Autumn"):
Dog autumn attacks.The original Korean text:
Syphilis autumn.
And death visits
one of twilight’s paralyzed legs.
Everything dries out
and all roads’ boundaries blur.
The old singer’s voice
droops on the recording.
“Hi Jugsun—no? This isn’t Jugsun? Jugsun.”
In midair, the telephone line
loses the receiver, and once-departed lovers
never return, not even in a dream.
In a guest room inside the tavern of time,
where the stagnant waste-water of memory
stinks like horse piss, I ask,
in a voice awakened from disheveled death:
How far have I gone, how far yet to go
before the river becomes the sea?
개같은 가을이 쳐들어온다.Compare against the previous English translation by Song and Brandel, titled "Autumn Like a Dog" (a more accurate translation of the Korean title):
매독같은 가을.
그리고 죽음은, 황혼 그 마비된
한 쪽 다리에 찾아온다.
모든 사물이 습기를 잃고
모든 길들의 경계선이 문드러진다.
레코드에 담긴 옛 가수의 목소리가 시들고
여보세요 죽선이 아니니 죽선이지 죽선아
전화선이 허공에서 수신인을 잃고
한번 떠나간 애인들은 꿈에도 다시 돌아오지 않는다.
그리고 그리고 괴어있는 기억의 폐수가
한없이 말 오줌 냄새를 풍기는 세월의 봉놋방에서
나는 부시시 죽었다 깨어난 목소리로 묻는다.
어디 만큼 왔나 어디까지 가야
강물은 바다가 될 수 있을까?
Autumn invades like a dog.In this case I prefer Song's and Brandel's translation, although I don't think either is really representative of the original. The syntaxes of the two languages, Korean and English, are just so different. But that's okay. I'd definitely suggest picking up this book if you have the opportunity, because Choe Seungja is an incredible poet.
An autumn like syphilis
and death visits on
twilight’s paralyzed leg.
Everything loses moisture
the borders of roads wear down
the old singer’s voice on a record warps
hello, is this Jooksun? Hey Jooksun? Jooksun?
a phone line loses a receiver in the empty air
and lovers who leave never return, not even in dreams.
And at time’s barroom where memory’s stagnated water
reeks endlessly of horse piss
I, disheveled, ask in the voice of a person waking from a coma
How far have we come? How far should we go
to see the river turning into the sea?
rebeccavalley's review
5.0
This book makes me want to write. Seungja has rapidly become a favorite poet of mine. I haven’t loved a book of poems this much in a long time.
lichenbitten's review
5.0
"Every woman has a grave inside
where death and birth sweat it out.
All humans struggle to flee
from this eternally blind port.
Women lie down like a rigid dead sea,
like the Altamira Cave or a ruined great shrine.
They provide a home for birds.
Inside the women, where sandwind blows,
broken shells birds have pecked their way out of
and death's debris
are piled high like empty casings.
Everything has to pass through the ruined shrine
and rigid dead sea
in order to be born again
and to die again."
-- On Woman
where death and birth sweat it out.
All humans struggle to flee
from this eternally blind port.
Women lie down like a rigid dead sea,
like the Altamira Cave or a ruined great shrine.
They provide a home for birds.
Inside the women, where sandwind blows,
broken shells birds have pecked their way out of
and death's debris
are piled high like empty casings.
Everything has to pass through the ruined shrine
and rigid dead sea
in order to be born again
and to die again."
-- On Woman
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