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Overview
Choi’s work gives us pause to think that more poets should do the work of historians. In clarity of words, we understand what happened “before” and how it affects “now.” We are even more privileged to have Choi double as a memoirist, as well. Personal, political and poetic — a perfect trio, making DMZ Colony a touching book of poetry.
"Don Mee Choi's urgent DMZ Colony captures the migratory latticework of those transformed by war and colonization. Homelands present and past share one sky where birds fly, but 'during the Korean War cranes had no place to land.' Devastating and vigilant, this bricolage of survivor accounts, drawings, photographs, and hand-written texts unearth the truth between fact and the critical imagination. We are all 'victims of History,' so Choi compels us to witness, and to resist."—Judges Citation
Woven from poems, prose, photographs, and drawings, Don Mee Choi's DMZ Colony is a tour de force of personal and political reckoning set over eight acts. Evincing the power of translation as a poetic device to navigate historical and linguistic borders, it explores Edward Said's notion of "the intertwined and overlapping histories" in regards to South Korea and the United States through innovative deployments of voice, story, and poetics. Like its sister book, Hardly War, it holds history accountable, its very presence a resistance to empire and a hope in humankind.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781940696959 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Wave Books |
| Publication date: | 04/07/2020 |
| Pages: | 152 |
| Sales rank: | 514,810 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.60(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Apparatus
IN THE PENAL COLONY: "It's a remarkable piece of apparatus" however "the explorer did
not much care about the apparatus" and noted "These uniforms are
too heavy for the tropics, surely" nonetheless "the officer" said
"but they mean home to us; we don't want to forget about home"
however "the officer" phonated "Have you ever heard of our
former Commandant?" still "A pity you never met the old
Commandant!" anyhow lingually "here stands his apparatus before
us" and withal "The lower one is called the 'Bed,' the upper one
the 'Designer,' and this one here in the middle that moves up and
down is called the 'Harrow'" after all "the officer was speaking
French" though utterly "neither the soldier nor the prisoner
understood a word of French" even so "the explorer" noted again
"It was all the more remarkable, therefore, that the prisoner was
nonetheless making an effort to follow the officer's explanations"
yet verbally "The Bed and the Designer were of the same size."
IN THE NEOCOLONY: "Horrific!" "(the translator who made herself as lowly as she
could)" reuttered in Korean "discarded language that no one needs,
surely" however "the investigator" in turn added phonetically "The
U.S. military!" "[The neocolonizer!]" yet "the prisoner said he
understood Japanese" noted "(the translator who didn't know a
word of it, and equally foreign to English—hence lowly)"
regardless "(the investigator)" sonated "The Japanese military!"
"[The former colonizer!]" and recounted "The military apparatus"
"The intelligence apparatus" "The police apparatus" even so
"What? Precisely this: that the upper floors could not 'stay up' (in
the air) alone, if they did not rest precisely on their base"
"(Althusser)" but then "(the translator)" politely paraphrased in
translation "there was no Bed to begin with" "soldiers who didn't
know a word of English" "only had to use their innate muscles to
dig deeper holes and trenches" "a primitive apparatus, surely"
"commies, surely" then ratted on "while the US military apparatus
provided extra-man-power machine guns and essential trucks to
transport the commies to their rightful digs" "Rat-a-tat-tat!" "Ra-atat-
tat!" In other words "[commie genocide]." And "[before the
war the US-backed Commandant, Syngman Rhee, kept a list of
300,000 commies in order to eradicate them]"—"[of course we
couldn't count every single civilian who was killed]"—"[some
were chained to rocks and drowned in the sea]"—"[the so-called
commies were mostly farmers, elders, women, children who lived
in villages beneath so-called commie mountains where the anticolonial
guerilla fighters hid during the day and came down at
night to collect provisions]" "(the investigator)" patiently spelled
out as she kept drawing "extraordinary circles" while "(the
translator)" could only helplessly flutter her ears. Anyhow, "The
State apparatus, which defines the State as a force of repressive
execution and intervention 'in the interest of the ruling classes [and
the neocolonizer] in the class struggle conducted by the
bourgeoisie and its allies against the proletariat [the neocolonized],
is quite certainly the State, and quite certainly defines its basic
'function'" enunciated "(Althusser)."
IN THE PENAL COLONY: "Does he know his sentence?" "(the explorer)"
"No" "(the officer)"
"He doesn't know the sentence that has been passed on him?"
"(the explorer)"
"No" "(the officer)"
"There would be no point in telling him. He'll learn it on his body"
"(the officer)"
"Whatever commandment the prisoner has disobeyed is written
upon his body by the Harrow" "(the officer)"
"HONOR THY SUPERIORS!" "(the Harrow)"
IN THE NEOCOLONY: (HONOR THY SKY!) "the old wisdom"
(YOU EVIL BITCHES!) "the neocolonial wisdom"
(HONOR THY KING!) "the old wisdom"
(YOU SCUMS OF SOCIETY!) "the neocolonial wisdom"
(HONOR THY HUSBAND!) "the old wisdom"
(YOU!) "the neocolonial wisdom"
(HONOR THY SON!) "the old wisdom"
(Before the woman was released, that is to say, after she was
clubbed nonstop for an entire month she received orders to bathe at
a creek in a remote area. When she took off her clothes, the same
ones she was wearing the day she was captured for no apparent
reason and put into a so called "mind-heart-soul" reform camp
under the command of a new Commandant [one more U.S.-backed
dictator a.k.a. "Your Excellency"] [for there is never a shortage of
them]—after all the police had to fill a certain quota of women
[300 out of 60,000]—the woman went into shock from what she
saw. Her whole body was blue! There wasn't a single part of her
body that was not blue from the savage beatings. She thought she
was the only blue one, but the woman next to her was also blue!
The woman in front of her was, again, blue! And the woman
behind her was totally blue!) "the investigator"
(BLUE x 300!) "the translator"
IN THE PENAL COLONY: (The batons energized by muscles alone lack the technology
and sophistication of the Harrow but nonetheless it should be
understood as an instrument of writing) "the translator"
(Are you saying blue can be translated?) "the USA"
(Yes, blue can be translated as BLUE x 300, without the
exclamation mark, if need be) "the translator"
("LOST IN TRANSLATION" is an old wisdom) "the translator"
("TRANSLATOR, TRAITOR" rhymes yet undoubtedly an old
wisdom) "the translator"
("WE DON'T WANT TO FORGET ABOUT HOME" is entirely
universal, therefore, remains untranslatable) "the translator" [who
was terribly homesick even at home—the translator is without a
uniform, mind you]"
("In order to advance the theory of the [neocolonial] State) (I shall
call this reality by its concept: the [neocolonial] ideological State
apparatuses") "Althusser"
(And in order to advance the theory of translation I translate "the
State" as "the [neocolonial] State" and "the ideological State
apparatuses" as "the [neocolonial] ideological State apparatuses"
and "the USA" as "the united status of apparatus" considering
ample "reality" has already been offered to the curious reader [not
to dismiss "the USAs"] [plurality of reality propels translation]
[difference propels theory] [memory propels art] [which may all be
beside the point]) "the translator"
("But now for what is essential. What distinguishes the ISAs from
the (Repressive) State Apparatus is the following basic difference:
the Repressive State Apparatus functions 'by violence', whereas
the Ideological State Apparatuses 'function by ideology'")
"Althusser"
IN THE NEOCOLONY: "(…)" "(e e e)" "(…)" "(ideology)" "(…)" (Mr. Ahn)
"(ideology)" "(ideology is a system of the ideas and
representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social
group)" "(ideology)" "(before Freud)" "(is for Marx an imaginary
assemblage)" "(bricolage)" "(a pure dream empty and vain)"
"('day's residues')" "(It is on this basis)" "(ideology)" "(has no
history)" "(since history is outside it)" "(ideology)" "(can and
must)" "(be related directly to)" "(Freud's)" "(that the unconscious
is eternal)" "(i.e. that it has no history)" "(if)" "(eternal)"
"(means)" "(not transcendent)" "(but)" "(omnipresent)" "(transhistorical)"
"(and therefore)" "(I shall adopt Freud's expression)"
"(word for word)" "(and write)" "(ideology is eternal)" "(exactly)"
"(like)" "(the unconscious)" "(the eternity of the unconscious)"
"(is not)" "(unrelated)" "(to the)" "(eternity of ideology)" "(in
general)" (Althusser)
IN THE NEOCOLONY: "(…)" "(e e e)" "(…)" "(I was on Planet e)" "(…)" (Mr. Ahn)
"(Ideology has a material existence)" "(ideology)" "(always exists
in an apparatus)" "(ideology)" "(=)" "(an imaginary relation to real
relations)" "(imaginary relation)" "(is)" "(itself endowed with a
material existence)" (Althusser)
(e e e) (=) (ideology) (=) (imaginary) (=) (eternity) (the translator)
IN THE NEOCOLONY: (eliminate) (eradicate) (obliterate) (the National Security Law
apparatus)
(will you change your political view or not?) (old Your
Excellency)
(will you change your political view or not?) (new Your
Excellency)
"(oe)" "(ae)" "(ie)" "(e)" "(e)" "(e)" (Mr. Ahn)
IN THE PENAL COLONY: 10. Have you EVER been a member of, or in any way associated
with the Community Party? (old INS apparatus)
10. Have you EVER been a member of, or in any way associated
(either directly or indirectly) with: A. The Communist Party? B.
Any other totalitarian party? C. A terrorist organization? (new
USCIS apparatus)
(chorus of allegiance: EVER, EVER, EVER)
A. Eternity
B. Eternity
C. Eternity
IN DMZ COLONY: I'll leave it up to your imagination
A. 이
B. 이
C. 이
Table of Contents
Sky TranslationWings of Return-Ahn Hak-sŏp #1-Ahn Hak-sŏp #2-Ahn Hak-sŏp #3-Ahn Hak-sŏp #4-Ahn Hak-sŏp #5
Planetary Translation
The Orphans-Orphan Cheo Geum-jeom-Orphan Heo Jeom-dal-Orphan Kim Kyong-nam-Orphan Kim Kap-sun-Orphan Cheong Cheong-ja-Orphan Wu Gi-myo-Orphan Yi Jeong-seon-Orphan Kim Seong-rye-Orphan Nine-Who am I?
The Apparatus
Interpellation of Return
Mirror Words-Ruoy Ycnellecxe-Who are you?-Your Excellency-Era uoy evila?-Sky Similes for Snow Geese-(Blue x 300!)
(Neo) (=) (Angels)
Notes
Acknowledgements
