Enough to Say It's Far: Selected Poems of Pak Chaesam

Enough to Say It's Far: Selected Poems of Pak Chaesam

Enough to Say It's Far: Selected Poems of Pak Chaesam

Enough to Say It's Far: Selected Poems of Pak Chaesam

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Overview

This is the first English translation of selected poems by one of the most important and unusual modern poets of South Korea. In contrast to the strident political protests found in the poetry of many of his contemporaries, Pak Chaesam's work is characterized by intimate portraits of place, nature, childhood, and human relationships, and by indirection, nostalgia, and reflectiveness.


Often focused upon the border of this world and some other, Pak writes with a spareness of presentation but a cornucopia of imagery, meticulously exploring objective and subjective realms of existence and memory. Encouraging the reader to see and listen, and to allow the sensory to reshape the analytical, Pak's poetry opens up new realms of experience. A fellow Korean poet described Pak's poetry as being "the most exquisite expression of the Korean sense of han," or melancholy.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781400827053
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication date: 07/03/2006
Series: The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation , #56
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 184
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Pak Chaesam (1933-1997) wrote fifteen books of poetry and numerous books of essays, and he won many of South Korea's most prestigious literary prizes. David R. McCann is Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Literature at Harvard University. Jiwon Shin is Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xiii

Soaring Dragon Waterfall 3

Han 5

Sound of the Taffy Seller's Shears 7

Landscape 9

Thousand-Year Wind 11

From the Song of a Celebrated Singer 13

A Path of a Heavenly Maiden 15

Autumn River in Burning Tears 17

Some Day, Some Month 19

As Summer Goes and Autumn Comes 21

Landscape Painter 23

Enough to Say It's Far 25

In the Wind 27

Waking Alone at Dawn 29

Spring's Pathway 31

News from Home 33

Immortals' Paduk Game 35

Untitled 37

Night at Tonghak Temple 39

Seeing the Ferry 41

My First Love 43

In an Empty Courtyard 45

Nothing 47

Seeing the Fresh Green 49

The Feeling of the Gingko 51

Recollection 13 53

Spring Path 55

The Road Back 57

New Arirang 59

Looking at Winter Trees 61

Spring Riverside 63

By the Night Sea 65

Having a Drink 67

Poplar 69

Friend, You Have Gone 71

My Poem 73

At the River 75

Recollection 18 77

Recollection 29 79

I Know the Heart of the Wildgoose 81

Without Title 83

On a Rainy Day 85

Tree 87

Autumn Sea 89

Flowers on a Dead Tree 91

Song of Death 93

Diary in Summer Heat 95

Flowers May Bloom 97

Four-Line Poems 99

1 Brightness 99

2 With One Head 101

3 Place 103

4 A Song 105

Baby's Foot on My Brow 107

Asking Not Understanding 109

What You Sent Me 111

P'iri Hole 113

Days and Months 115

Parenthetical 117

Before the Wind 119

What I Learned from the Sea 121

Looking at the Sunlight 123

Shimmering 125

Small Song 127

Stars 129

By the Mountain 131

As for Love 133

After an Illness 135

Going to the Mountain 137

Place Where I Look at Islands 139

Recollection 16 141

Autumn Coming 143

A Night When Sleep Is Far 145

Translators' Epilogue 147

What People are Saying About This

Richard Howard

McCann and Shin have executed what seem to me a perfect set of translations. The work is all of a piece, and all very fine.
Richard Howard, series editor of the "Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation", and author of "Inner Voices: Selected Poems, 1963-2003"

Choi

This translation of selected poems by one of South Korea's most respected lyric poets illuminates his work for the first time in English. These poems do not neglect to remind the reader of irrecoverable time, but insist on the mind's ability to bear the richness of what has been lost, captured in Pak's image of the persimmon, the deep orange fruit arriving late in the year. The poems have been rendered in an evocative English afterlife by the translators. Their decisions, particularly regarding words difficult to translate, prove to be astute and effective. It is a welcome work that fills a large gap in Korean poetry in English.
Ann Y. Choi, Rutgers University

From the Publisher

"McCann and Shin have executed what seem to me a perfect set of translations. The work is all of a piece, and all very fine."—Richard Howard, series editor of the Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation, and author of Inner Voices: Selected Poems, 1963-2003

"This translation of selected poems by one of South Korea's most respected lyric poets illuminates his work for the first time in English. These poems do not neglect to remind the reader of irrecoverable time, but insist on the mind's ability to bear the richness of what has been lost, captured in Pak's image of the persimmon, the deep orange fruit arriving late in the year. The poems have been rendered in an evocative English afterlife by the translators. Their decisions, particularly regarding words difficult to translate, prove to be astute and effective. It is a welcome work that fills a large gap in Korean poetry in English."—Ann Y. Choi, Rutgers University

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