Grotesque Weather and Good People

A debut English translation of contemporary free verse poetry by award-winning South Korean poet and novelist Lim Solah. By turns humorous and dark, these poems explore the simultaneous intimacy and alienation of everyday life in urban Seoul. Writing in a simple vernacular, Lim’s lyric I struggles with the poet’s call to “wonder” in a world lurking with quiet dissonance and horror. This book is going to be published as part of Black Ocean’s Moon Country series in 2022.

 

 

 

Pomegranate

 

The window shows me: me standing outside the window. A road crosses over my thighs, and the last train arrives into my waist. People pour out and walk into a building inside my chest. I put my hand in my chest and open a window. There’s a woman inside repotting her plant. I open another window below the first one. There’s a split pomegranate on the kitchen table. I open another window below the one I just opened. There’s white. A small baby grabs fistfuls of snow and crawls over a snow-covered field. I open the next window down. The street lamps light up on my eyebrows. An airplane passes over my forehead. The city in my body oozes out. I open the last window. I see me standing inside, counting windows. The glass glitters. I turn off the light. Me inside the window, me outside the window. We can finally disappear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red

 

I heard the word “deer.”
Deer run in zig zags as soon as they’re born
is what I heard. So they won’t get eaten.

I heard the word “girl.”
I want to eat
is what I heard.

 

*

 

How far can I let my voice spread? What should I do so it doesn’t
vanish? My tears turn the whites of my eyes red. If suffering had a
color, I’d be composed of that color. If the window is open, it will
flood out and spread into the gingko tree, then the crosswalk. It’ll
boil up and up (open the window please) all the way to a window
in the building across the street. It’s the color of suffering, I
declare. I trust that the color of blood is red. My eyes sting. I
squint, as if the crimson sun rises.

There’s a line in my journal that goes like this:
Even murderers can’t be deprived of their right to pray.
I hesitate between this line and my prayer
that everyone please kill yourselves.

 

*

I heard if I go there
I won’t find a road.

I heard the word “human.”
Humans cry the moment they’re born
is what I heard.

You’re naked, dangled by the ankles
and smacked.
This is the first time
you’re required to cry.

Unspeakable suffering is spoken.
An impossible wish comes true.

Congratulations on the suffering.
I set the candle ablaze
with red. I sing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lim Solah is a writer from South Korea. She is the author of the novel The Best Life (Munhakdongnae 2015), poetry books Grotesque Weather and Good People (Munhakgwajiseongsa 2017), Get Packing (Hyeondaemunhak 2020), and the short story collection Snow, Person and Snowperson (Munhakdongnae 2019). She is the recipient of numerous awards such as the JoongAng New Writer’s Award for Poetry, Sin Dong-yup Prize for Literature, and the Moonji Literary Award. Lim received the Arts Council Korea’s Young Art Frontier Grant in 2014.

Translators Bio: 

Oh Eunkyung and Olan Munson are freelance translators and graduates of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. Based in Germany, Oh works to introduce contemporary Korean writers to an international readership. Munson is a PhD student in the department of Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. In 2017, they won the Korea Times Modern Korean Literature Translation Commendation Award in fiction for their co-translation of Choi Eunyoung’s short story “Xin chào, Xin chào.” Their English translation of Grotesque Weather and Good People is forthcoming with Black Ocean.