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