[KS] KSR 2000-02:_Farmers' Dance_ by Shin KyOng-Nim and _Day-Shine_ by

[Stephen Epstein]

_Farmers' Dance_, by Shin Ky™ng-Nim, translated by Brother Anthony of TaizŽ
and Young-Moo Kim.  Cornell East Asia Series, 105.  Ithaca:  East Asia
Program, Cornell University, and Seoul:  DapGae Books, 1999 (bilingual
edition).  212 pp.  (ISBN 1-885445-05-9, paper, 14.00).

_Day-Shine_ by Chong Hyon-jong, translated and edited by Wolhee Choe and
Peter Fusco.  Cornell East Asia Series, 94.  Ithaca:  East Asia Program,
Cornell University, 1998.  128 pp. (ISBN 1-885445-54-7 cloth, $22.00; ISBN
1-885445-94-6 paper, $14.00).

Reviewed by Gregory Nicholas Evon
The Australian National University

	In the Series Editor's Afterword to _Farmers' Dance_ Young-Moo Kim
states that "to fall upon a good translation is much harder than to discern
a good original work."  Nonetheless, it seems that he and Brother Anthony
of TaizŽ have succeeded on both counts, and to this may be added Wolhee
Choe's and Peter Fusco's efforts in _Day-Shine_.

	Born within four years of each other, both Chong (b. 1939) and Shin
(b. 1935) experienced the political and social upheavals suffered by Korea
in this century.  These upheavals, nonetheless, largely remain in the
background to their poetry.  They serve as context, but in no way limit the
poets' engagement with the concrete, human element.  "Common humanity" and
"shared humanity" are emphasized in the introduction to Chong's collection,
yet these descriptions are applicable to Shin as well, and in a sense these
two collections can each be seen as a companion pieces.

	Chong is the more self-consciously literary of the two--with
references to Samuel Beckett (p. 62), the Marquis de Sade (p. 14) and
Nietzsche (p. 117)--and paradoxically, he is the more East Asian of the
two, so to speak.  As noted in the introduction (pp. 5, 6, 8, and 9), one
finds in his poems certain Taoist and Buddhist sensibilities, and yet these
come across not so much as clichŽs but instead inventive re-readings of
clichŽs.  The introduction states (accurately, I think) that through the
use of "clichŽs or near-clichŽs...he opens up possibilities of new meaning
by novel juxtapositions, parodies, or partial substitutions and changes.
Since words, once uttered, begin to limit the reality to be comprehended,
he tries to rescue words by lifting them from a given context and placing
them in poetic constructions where they may float freed from contentious
discursiveness" (p. 9).  This evaluation strikes me as being in fundamental
agreement with Chong's interesting essay / meditation on poetry, "Breath
and Dream--On Poetry" (pp. 113-117), which concludes the selection and is
beautifully translated by Uchang Kim and Ted Hughes.

	Appropriately, we find a degree of mistrust in Chong's attitude
towards words, and this is given its clearest expression in "Empty Room, 5"
(p. 50) where he exclaims "There is no deliverance from this word to that
word. / At any rate, as for the tongue, / it's most useful to kiss with!"
A similar sense of the natural and physical offering a release not found in
the intellectual is found also "In Praise of Dusk" (p. 24), which begins
"With the passing of twilight / the world becomes richer!" and concludes
with a comparison of the corporeal body to the void, resolving with
"there's nothing my hands cannot touch. / Water is the same: / its hands
extend to infinity--"  There is in this a sense of expansiveness which,
intriguingly, seems to be at odds with another poem with a similar title:
Jorge Luis Borges' "In Praise of Shadow" (Elogio de la Sombra).  Whereas
Chong's praise of dusk centers on opulence-- "to be opulent is to lack
distinction"-Borges' self-knowledge comes through a stripping away of
thoughts on other matters to arrive at a distinct self: "Emerson and snow
and so many things. / Now I can forget them.  I reach my center, / my
algebra and my key, / my mirror. / Soon I will know who I am."

	This is not to say that Chong's work as represented here is without
political content.  "To Get Attached to Someplace Is Hell-- May 1980
Kwangju" (p. 14) and "Like a Ghost" (pp. 55-56), detailing Korea's liberal
use of tear gas-- "so poisonous it can not be exported"--on college
campuses, are both fine poems which happen to depict political oppression.
Indeed, his question in "Ghost"-- "How come you act so without
restraint?"--is sufficiently answered in the former poem: that one who
commits a crime to gain power then "uses that power to secure the freedom
to commit other crimes."  In other words: "How come you act so without
restraint?" "Because we can."  It is perhaps not unreasonable to wonder
whether his recognition of this fact ("part of Maurice Blanchot's
explanation of the world of the Marquis de Sade") is in some sense
responsible for his evident love of nature and even his very vision of
poetry as "breath, the breath of liberation" (p. 114).

	Shin's poems, on the other hand, seem largely devoid of any
self-consciously intellectual thought, and nature itself is usually a
setting for observations of people busy with living, or as is more often
the case, trying to live.  In "Summer Rains" (p. 33), for instance, we find
this sense of "trying to live" brought out forcefully through the mundane
which seems to serve in Shin a function similar to the use of clichŽ in
Chong: the promise of food ("pig's lard in shrimp sauce"), the desire for
cigarettes ("our pockets have run out of fags"), mention of an "old woman"
who "lost her son," uncomfortable as she sits "drenched in the monsoon
rains," and finally, "Old So [who] is worrying about his flighty wife, and
Pak [who] / is spinning tales of stockings he never bought, so fine / his
daughter's flesh would have shown right through."

	Music, food, and above all else, booze-- makk™lli and soju--are
basic ingredients in these poems.  Brother Anthony's decision to discuss
those things peculiarly Korean (food, alcohol, political / social
background, the architecture of Korean houses, etc.) in the introduction
seems to me to have been a good decision.  Consistent references to similar
items throughout the poems allow for Brother  Anthony's comprehensive
initial treatment, and in turn, the reader is able to see rather clearly
the Korean elements of Chong's poems when reading the English translations:
"it was the usual chilly April / as uncle's friends in their sneakers /
gathered in our yard and tossed back soju" ("The Abandoned Mine," p. 73) or
"We plain folk are happy just to see each other./...gulping down makk™lli
sitting at the bar" ("After Market's Done," p. 19).

	Yet one of Shin's poems also manifests a mistrust of language.  He
paints this mistrust by looking at a baby from an adult perspective, noting
that "in a little while he will learn the word 'Mama.'  It means / he will
lose the secret contained in the word 'Mama.' / But he doesn't realize
that."  In this poem, the very process of language acquisition results in
the loss of the secret contained in each thing a word designates, and the
"day he loses every secret, he will become fully human" ("A Baby," pp. 119
and 121).  This equating of becoming human with the loss of understanding
or at least, the loss of appreciation of actual objects ("flower, tree,
star") suggests the recognition of the distance between what we become and
what we might have become: self-knowledge that only adults have.  The
indication that this is, indeed, what Shin has in mind is found in the
final line of the poem: here, that baby has grown up, and "he will suffer
torment at the thought of some girl. /...he will weep, homesick for
himself.  Yet one senses that even the near-philosophical aspect of "A
Baby," with its sense of frustration and loss, is not all that different
from the other frustrations found in the poems: that this homesickness for
oneself is but one more example of that frustration--political, economic,
or otherwise--which is visited upon us when we "become fully human."

	Despite the apparent gloominess of this observation and the
harshness of the majority of the human lives he depicts-- "after living a
lonesome life, he died" ("Graveside Epitaph," p. 115) or "the carrier's
grandson, gone to make his fortune, / came back even poorer than before and
/ we held a party for him to celebrate only / the party soon turned into a
fight" ("That Winter", p. 81)--Shin's poetry is marked not so much by a
grim view of life but rather a careful accounting of the grimness of
certain aspects of certain lives.  To make poetry of this must not be easy,
and to make of these Korean poems English poems is also an accomplishment
worthy of praise.

	Both _Day-Shine_ and _Farmers' Dance_ deserve high praise for
contributing to a relatively small but growing body of excellent Korean
literature in excellent English translation.  Volumes such as these
demonstrate admirably the strengths of and beauty to be found in Korean
literature, and moreover, demonstrate that Korean literature can be
translated into English well, given the proper texts and the proper
translators.

Citation:
Evon, Gregory Nicholas 2000
Review of _Farmers' Dance_, by Shin Ky™ng-Nim, trans. Brother Anthony of
TaizŽ and Young-Moo Kim (1999);  and _Day-Shine_ by Chong Hyon-jong, trans. and
ed. by Wolhee Choe and Peter Fusco (1998)
_Korean Studies Review_ 2000, no. 2
Electronic file:
http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/korean-studies/files/ksr00-02.htm


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