A FLOWER THAT REFUSES TO BE POETRY by Kim Hyesoon trans. Cindy Juyoung Ok

/ / ISSUE 27, Translation

Anything too cold 
does not become poetry 
Anything too hot 
is not poetry
Soaking your feet 
in boiling water 
does not bring out poetry 
Lying on the ice 
with eyes wide open 
does not bring out poetry

That day no one wrote poetry
They just made a call 
Secretly picked up the receiver 
Blew and sent off poetry
—Did they wear new clothes? 
—No, just took off their old clothes.
That day no one wrote poetry and 
they ripped a wedding dress 
to make bandages and 
held rice bowls 
to make coffins to contain each of their heads 
Anything too beautiful 
is not poetry
That day when they opened their mouths and 
cried as though for the first time 
that was not poetry 
merely
the blooming of an entire city 
floating on the field of the earth
a flower that refuses to be poetry!

 

 

TRANSLATOR BIO: 

Cindy Juyoung Ok is the author of Ward Toward (Yale University Press, 2024), a Kenyon Review Fellow, and host of the Poetry Magazine Podcast. More translations from Kim Hyesoon’s The Hell of That Star are in Bennington Review, Poet Lore, and Tupelo Quarterly.

ISSUE 27

 

POETRY

 

TWO POEMS by Zuleyha Ozturk Lasky

 

THE POINT OF ARTICULATION by Car Simione

 

TWO POEMS by Sophia Terazawa

 

TWO POEMS by Kuhu Joshi

 

SELF-PORTRAIT AS THE CORNFIELDS by Carolina Hotchandani

 

TWO POEMS by Daniele Pantano

 

TWO POEMS by Lucas Jorgensen

 

 

FICTION

 

DOG by Jade Song

 

 

NONFICTION

 

ASUNCION FEVER by Beverly Burch

 

 

TRANSLATION

 

A FLOWER THAT REFUSES TO BE POETRY by Kim Hyesoon trans. Cindy Juyoung Ok

 

TWO POEMS by Abdourahman Waberi trans. Nancy Naomi Carlson

 

(JANUARY) by Hanna Riisager trans. Kristina Anderson Bicher

 

THREE POEMS by Nadja Küchenmeister trans. Aimee Chor

 

AN EXCERPT from YOU by Chantal Neveu trans. Erín Moure

 

AROUND THE FIRE by Gloria Susana Esquivel trans. Joel Streicker

 

INVITATION TO END by Faris Kuseyri trans. Patrick Sykes

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