To the Stars and Birds
Translation by Ethan Fenlon, a first year ETA in Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do My experience teaching at an all-boys middle school this year could be described as almost anything but serene. On the more chaotic days, I find it helpful to turn to the quiet good sense of those who came before me. I feel a particular connection with the poet Yoon Kon-Kang, author of “To the stars and birds,” who taught at Boseong Middle School in the 1940s and grew up in my adopted province of Chungcheongnam-do. Yoon often writes with clear, direct imagery influenced by the literary movement known as the Korean Artists’ Proletarian Federation (KAPF). His tone, somber yet resilient, also evokes his experiences as a political prisoner under Japanese colonial rule. Published four years after his release, this poem imagines Yoon’s own dissent like an echo that is heard at long last. To the stars and birds If I die without a hope, laid to rest in tranquil grass May my untold joy be sung by the woodland birds. But at night, the golden stars will paint above my woeful story. My friends and rivals, now alike, might listen on the mountain ridge. My body was born of a star, I will not shed a single tear! My fate is sealed — the day I die, nature will take my voice and go. 별과 새에게 만약 내가 속절없이 죽어 어느 고요한 풀섶에 묻히면 말하지 못한 나의 기쁜 이야기는 숲에 사는 적은 새가 노래해 주고 밤이면 눈물어린 금빛 눈동자 별떼가 지니고 간 나의 슬픈 이야기를 말해 주리라 그것을 나의 벗과 나의 원수는 어느 작은 산모롱이에서 들으리라 한개 별의 넋을 받아 태어난 몸이니 나는 우지 마자 슬피 우지 말자 나의 명이 다―하여 내가 죽는 날 나는 별과 새에게 내 뜻을 심고 가리라 [Featured photo by Miranda Magaña]
Looking Glass
Translation by Ethan Fenlon, a first year ETA in Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do Since Narcissus, Western literature has dealt with the motif of the mirror with a tinge of distrust: mirrors distract, mirrors disturb, mirrors lie. However, in his 1938 poem “Looking Glass,” Yoon Kon-Kang probes a more terrible truth, and questions what would happen if the “I” in the mirror were to disappear completely. Taking after other Korean modernists like Yi Sang who explore the paradoxical nature of gazing on one’s own reflection, Yoon nonetheless blazes his own trail in this piece, reflecting (ha) on solitude and the self. Looking Glass Nobody’s coming, no one is waiting in a room like the sea— While transfixed by the face reflected in a boundless looking glass, someone may break in, stealing it away without leaving a trace… Oh oh! When the silence is deafening, isn’t loneliness death? 면경(面鏡) 올 사람도 없고 기다릴 사람도 없는 바다속 같은 방 안― 테 없는 거울, 그속에 비친 얼굴을 뚫어지라 쏘아볼 때, 누가 자취도 없이 들어와서 저 거울마저 빼앗아간다면…… 오오! 소리없음을 ‘정적(靜寂)’이라면 외로움은 한개 색다른 ‘주검’이냐? [Featured photo by Gaia Gonzales]