by Seo Jung Hak
translated by Megan Sungyoon ’20
Published by World Poetry Books (2023)
The elusive, distant, almost disembodied voice of Korean poet Seo Jung Hak’s English-language debut examines interiorities that seem familiar, yet whose ordinariness rises to the level of the uncanny.
Inspired by the commodification of arts, emotions, and ideologies, these poems—written over a span of 18 years from 1999 to 2017—parody the very act of writing amid worn-out rhetorical tropes, in a tone that is at times sinisterly witty and at others ominously blithe.