Korean Poets

Here's is more information on the poet described in the post below: Sang Ku

Here is another one of his poems in English translation, followed by the original Korean:

Rehearsal for a death-bed scene

Lying under a white sheet,
I'm carried off in an ambulance.

The evening sky hangs upside-down beneath my feet,
forming a terrible quagmire of death.

I picture my corpse like this, rigid, stretched out
my skeleton, decomposed, reduced to bones.

Behind me, a lifetime lies smothered in error,
I have not even born buds of sweat and tears,
let alone the love that can blossom in Eternity.

No point in getting flustered now ......

"Father, into your hands
I commend my spirit."

Instinctively repeating the last words of him
whom I have only aped, not truly served,
I sever the link with all concepts.

And my breath becomes rasping.

임종 예습

흰 홑이불에 덮혀
앰뷸런스에 실려간다.
밤하늘이 거꾸로 발 밑에 드리우며
죽음의 아슬한 수렁을 짓는다.

이 채로 굳어 뻗어진 내 송장과
사그라져 앙상한 내 해골이 떠오른다.

돌이켜보아야 착오 투성이 한평생
영원의 동산에다 꽃 피울 사랑 커녕
땀과 눈물의 새싹도 못지녔다.

이제 허둥댔자 부질없는 노릇이지 ......

"아버지 저의 영혼을
당신 손에 맡기나이다."

시늉만 했지 옳게 섬기지는 못한
그 분의 최후 말씀을 부지중 외우면서
나는 모든 상념에서 벗어난다.

또 숨이 차온다.

The same site has information on another Korean Catholic Poet, Sister Claudia Haein Lee.

A while ago, Pavle Jurodivyj of ξενιτεια, had a posting about a very different type of poet of Korean descent in Ishle Yi Park Named Poet Laureate of Queens, New York City. The Ishle Yi Park Homepage has links to her poems, including this one:

To Nintendo

Before you, life was unbearable –
a flat screen and ping pong ball.
But oh, you sleek grey box,
you already wrapped present!

We sat in front of you, awed
as if you were the first red sunrise.

We burned a horseshoe
of permanent round circles into the rug
with our asses - a communion
of Afghani, Puerto Rican, Korean kids

trying to unpeel the secrets of a mustached
plumber who swallowed mushrooms,
zapped dumb-eyed turtles, warped
to other zones through green maintenance pipes.

We slept to your lullabies, the digitized
soundtrack of our childhood.

Outside, a world of mothers chastising
in accents thick as static. Blocks of white boys
bored and violent, ready to snap gum,
spit, snap us in half with splintered

Louisville Sluggers. Inside – Zelda
and goblins and magic wing-ed fairies.
Enemies you could throw a pot at,
stab twice, and they’d implode and disappear.

10 years later, we’re split
and scattered, half college drop-outs,
Soju drunk, stumbling,
and I recall how we once fought

to keep alive, counting our hearts,
freezing time to gulp Coke, taking turns
to save each other, anything, anything!
To beat them at their game.

Back then, we never gave up,
never walked away –

if the light wouldn’t bling on,
we’d check the plug, blow into the cartridge,
clean out the dust, bang that sucker on any flat surface –

give a small push, close the door, and pray.

I have to confess, I've never really had much of an ear or eye for poetry, but I can say that Mr. Ku's poem causes me to think and reflect, while Miss Yi Park's poem fails to produce the snide chuckle it intends.