Earlier in the week I looked at the latest English
translation release from Korean poet Ko Un, “Maninbo – Peace & War”, and
another new release I purchased at the same time is now up for review, female
Korean poet HeeDuk Ra and her book “Wild Apple”.
This work is published by White Pine Press and is volume
twenty-one in their Korean Voices Series (even though the image of the cover says "Volume 20" my edition says "Volume 21" and the listing in the back of the book contains 21 publications). The collection includes a novel by
Cheon Myeong-Kwan, “Modern Family” (translated by Kyoung-lee Park), four
collections of stories, their first volume being an anthology of Korean Fiction
titled “The Snowy Road” and seventeen poetry collections, including Ko Un who I
reviewed earlier in the week and a work titled
“This Side of Time; Selected Poems by Ko Un” (translated by Claire You
and Richard Silberg) and another collection of HeeDuk Ra poetry called “Scale
and Stairs” (translated by Won-chung Kim and Christopher Merrill).
As HeeDuk Ra explains in the “Poet’s Note” at the end of the
collection, “it was an unfamiliar continent where I first tasted a wild apple.
Sour and astringent, that untamed flavor was quite different from the apples of
a fruit store or in a farmer’s basket. Like a bird pecking at a wild fruit, I
felt awkwardly free.” Our translators, Daniel Parker and YoungShil Ji, explain
in the “Translator’s Note, also at the conclusion of the collection;
Wild Apple represents a rebirth, or at least a change in direction,
for Ra’s poetry. In an early interview just days before she left South Korea
for he sabbatical year in England, Ra explained that she used to work
diligently on self-reflection, but many of the poems in this book were “released”
much more naturally. She wanted to “quench her desire to write” by waiting for
the right moment to construct her ideas in written language; relying on her
heart more than her brain.
“Wild Apple” is a slim volume, running to 88 pages, and
containing sixty-two poems, many of them born during her trips to the United
States and the title poem itself coming from a visit to New Mexico.
This is a subtle, nuanced collection of poetry, with that
natural world prominently featured, wind, cliffs, clouds, setting suns are
recurring themes, as is weather. In ‘Raindrops’ we have the rhythmic pattern of
rain intermingled with the story of rain’s cycle, “I realized raindrops are the
death of clouds”…”I realized clouds are the death of a river”; all of this is
interspersed with the tale of American Indian burial mounds and the connection
these have to landscape and environment.
Drops of Water
after he disappeared
I began to hear the water all
around
into the dirty battered sink
tok, tok, tok, tok, tok …
staccato drops of water falling
.
the sound signals a leak in my
life
I give my ear to it like touching
it with dry roots
like knocking at a door
like footsteps
sometimes like chattering birds
the sound of water
in a drop a child cries
in a drop a hydrangea blooms
in a drop a goldfish dies
in a drop a bowl breaks
in a drop snowflakes fall
in a drop an apple ripens
in a drop I hear a song
climbing through the distant
pipes,
droplets wet the silence of my
empty room,
rock a cradle with tearful eyes
my heart, too, begins to resemble
a waterdrop
tok, tok, tok, tok, tok…
foreign drops of blood flowing
into my pale skin
Forefront here, again, is the rhythm of drops of water from a
leaking tap, but measured against the passing of time, all the events that
happen in the blink of an eye, or in the time it takes for a drop of water to
fall into the battered sink.
The poem ‘Between “No Sighting” and “Sighting”’ takes the
diaries from a whaling ship and turns the nineteen days of monotony, the
repetitive period of “no sighting”, into a poem. We have the fog, deep night
seas, blood, and scrawlings in Chinese characters on a faded log page, all
drawing a vivid picture of 1970’s lonely whaling expeditions.
Obscure daily activities, like hanging out a pair of panties
to dry, become poetry, as HeeDukRa observes the shadow on the floor. We have
cleaning a barren pond, inhaling fog, a celebration of being alive and
awareness of the present moment. Although not meditative the mundane daily activities
are highlighted to show the beauty in each waking moment.
The poem “Like Pig’s Heads” mixing the tradition of having
pig’s heads on display in the Jagalchi street market and their fake smiles,
against a person smiling in the mirror and a glimpse of an anonymous person in
the rear view mirror on the way to work.
Road kill is mingled in with lamentations for past lovers,
blooming banksia’s and their germination cycle back up against burned corn
fields. The movie ‘Being John Malkovich’ is the subject of one poem, up against
wearing red shoes and celebrating the art and freedom of dancing.
This is a beautiful collection of poems, ones to ruminate
upon, ones to dwell and and allow their full impact to be felt.
Given the quality of the work I am pretty sure I will be
exploring a number of other books from White Wine Press and more specifically a
few more of the twenty-one available in the Korean Voices Series.
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