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.