I Must Be the Wind

Description

Dazzling strokes of falling stars in falling water. I want to write poems like that,’ writes Moon Chung-hee. Thanks to Silberg and You, these poems dazzle bright in English. Here love is violent and ‘suffered, an encysted stone . . . wedged’ in the heart, and defiance trembles the soul: ‘Dress up for men, you say? / Nonsense / I stripped / for them . . . the world’s women / root on earth, naked.’ Chung-hee casts off ‘the watch and mink stole,’ and exclaims: ‘I want to be a free dancer from now on.'”?Sholeh WolpTMoon Chung-hee’s poetry is passionate, impetuous, a poetry of love, epiphany, feminist assertion, even rebellion.Richard Silberg co-translated, with Clare You, The Three Way Tavern and This Side of Time, by Ko Un. He is author of The Horses: New and Selected Poems.Clare You is the Chair of the Center for Korean Studies at USC Berkeley, and has co-translated modern Korean poetry and fiction into English.

“‘Dazzling strokes of falling stars in falling water. I want to write poems like that,’ writes Moon Chung-hee. Thanks to Silberg and You, these poems dazzle bright in English. Here love is violent and ‘suffered, an encysted stone . . . wedged’ in the heart, and defiance trembles the soul: ‘Dress up for men, you say? / Nonsense / I stripped / for them . . . the world’s women / root on earth, naked.’ Chung-hee casts off ‘the watch and mink stole,’ and exclaims: ‘I want to be a free dancer from now on.'”—Sholeh Wolpé

Moon Chung-hee’s poetry is passionate, impetuous, a poetry of love, epiphany, feminist assertion, even rebellion.