I Am a Season That Does Not Exist in the World

by Kim Kyung Ju, Jake Levine (Translator)

Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. Translated from the Korean by Jake Levine. Kim Kyung Ju's poetry operates in a world where no one seems to belong: "the living are born in the dead people's world, and the dead are born in the living." Already in its thirtieth edition in Korea, I AM A SEASON THAT DOES NOT EXIST IN THE WORLD is one of the most important books in the movement Korean critics have called Miraepa or future movement. Destructive forces like social isolation, disease, and ecological degradation are transformed into gateways to the sublime where human action takes on the mythic and chaotic quality of nature. Conflating human agency with the natural order, Kim's poems have been called by critics both a blessing and a curse to Korean literature. This book will be a startling English-language debut for one of the best-known poets writing in Korean today.

Jake Levine has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including funding from the Korean Translation Institute, a Korean Government scholarship, and a Fulbright scholarship. He writes a series of syndicated articles in the Korean literary magazine Munjang, translating and introducing contemporary American poets to a Korean general audience. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks, edits at Spork Press, holds an MFA from the University of Arizona, and is currently getting his PhD in comparative literature at Seoul National University."

Genres: Poetry, Asian Literature, Fiction, Asia

123 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2016

Reviews

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It cannot end like this, I thought--
a mass extermination of inner life."

"I don't sing with people who know more than 100 religious hymns."

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this book. Certainly, I am astonished by its originality, the enormous imaginative force of its achievement, perhaps best exemplified by the two long poems "Synopsis for the Theremin" and "A City of Sadness," which imagine a lovelorn composer who wrote a piece of music so soulful that, in its next life, that piece of music was reincarnated as a man. What a beautiful idea! And the book contains many beautiful lines, though one sometimes suspects that this beauty is beside the point, that in Kim's worldview such beauty is just one part of a larger whole in which ugliness, disgust, and other such things are equally worthy of attention. Kim obviously loves music, Beethoven, etc. -- and music is a recurring theme throughout this book -- but, amid the perverse brutality of some of the images in these poems, this theme of music appreciation sometimes seems almost to play the role of the theme of Alex's music appreciation in A Clockwork Orange.

"Proof of our lives was that we could feel pain; however, pain was not something that could exonerate us. After we admitted this fact, we felt wonderful."

"And because I am irrational I can't explain anything I believe in And because I can't explain I write"

The voice throughout feels masculine, cold, alienated, separate, a bit Rimbaud-esque, especially in some of the longer prose poems. Like Rimbaud, Kim is simultaneously sensitive-souled and anti-Romantic ("to form the pattern inside the water / how much does the wind need to blather?"). Like Rimbaud, Kim seems to enjoy interrogating his own disgust -- this book is rife with images of chopped-off fingers, plucked-out eyes, hair everywhere (including pubic hair), spiders and other creepy-crawlies, dwindled and distorted bodies, smells, hints of a kind of shivery "body horror." And Kim seems sometimes to share Rimbaud's wish to shock his audience, which can be a bit offputting, but then, he also sometimes has Rimbaud's tenderness: "There are times when, suddenly / I cannot be reminded of mother's handwriting," one poem begins, unexpectedly and anomalously. "From behind, for his entire life, my dad slept embracing my sick mom," one poem narrates rather sweetly, only to have this sweetness refuted by a later poem in the same series that tells how "Dad crawled inside my sick mom like an inchworm."

"Humanity's pattern is the moment you see the beautiful eyes of fish and they become difficult to eat...."

"The only ability I have is the ability to be different from you."

The feel of this book as a whole is the farthest thing from autobiographical -- instead of literal autobiographical detail, Kim strongly prefers the symbolic -- yet there are some passages that offer glimpses of a life, e.g., the recurring references to past military service in "A City of Sadness," other poems mentioning a childhood of ramen powder and home haircuts. And I found myself gravitating toward those poems that mention a mom or a dad, as these gave me tastes of the human tenderness I crave from poetry. The titles of two of these poems, "Father's Dickhead" and "Even Now Mom Wears Her Flower Pattern Underwear," capture the humor and perversity with which Kim approaches even this subject matter, embodying how a milieu of awkwardness and discomfort is where he likes to situate his insights: "As mom proved in her time, life is lived moment by moment / by putting on panties and beginning again" is an undeniably risible yet also tenderly true epiphany found in the latter poem. "Hear the Mackerel Cry" is a somewhat more serious and successful "mom poem," where the speaker's mom becomes conflated with the mackerel the speaker grilled for dinner: "While striking the floor with her fin, mom straightens her spine. Mom, please stop dribbling. I can't close my eyes when I think of your spit.... Sunk into the deep, Mom quietly spits purple air. The mackerel is weeping." I liked the unsentimental conflict in this poem, that authentic-feeling mix of impatience and love.

"You can't see the poet's star from earth. However, you can watch the earth from the poet's star."

[Stephanie M. Wytovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning. Easily my favorite Black Ocean Press buy.

[Matt McBride · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unplaceable loss is an omnipresent weather in these poems which feel like they are erasing themselves as they are being written. Or, as Ju says in the beautiful and surreal long poem that end the book, "City of Sadness": "Memory is a thing we cannot posses." The pleasure, for me, of this book was in the uniqueness of the poet's vision, the ability to watch as Ju pops his retina like a cork and thousands of canisters of film roll out of his eyes (as he puts it). Pure invention drives these poems forward, but it would be a mistake to say that anything can happen in these poems as they are hemmed in by the porous boundary of death, even if it's unclear what side of the boundary these poems take place.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Kyler Wegner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was definitely an interesting collection to say the least. Most of it was some seriously odd shit and when I say that I mean that imagery and syntax were dizzying. And what I mean by that is almost all of them made close to no sense. There were a few poems that stuck out but my mind is overwhelmed with the density of his writing style. I would not use the term complex here because Eliot is complex and he does have a tendency to drift away from the subject. Kim drifts away quickly by slamming metaphors and similes together like a mad man. I will definitely have some rereading to do to fully process and appreciate his work. And I will say that his work gives a glimpse through the window of Korean poetry. I favor this publisher for most of the modern poets I read so I do trust them.

[Conor Heilferty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book of poetry incredibly challenging because of how bizarre and tangential the imagery is. There are moments of real beauty in here and profound realization but even non-sensical images need to emote some kind of feeling, for me, and I often found them to be jarring instead of engaging. Having said that, this will definitely be something I try to revisit in the future.

[Manon「マノン」 · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's not you, it's me. It wasn’t a bad poetry collection; it's just wasn't for me.

[Ryan Bollenbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

I especially enjoyed the final section though there were quite a few standout poems in the earlier parts (it is a fairly long poetry collection). I think I enjoyed the later parts because it took me the most of the book to get use to the stacks on stacks of modifiers (which normally isn't something that trips me up at all), probably an indicator that this book would reward re-reading.

[Nicki Uy · Rating 4 out of 5]

to me this book is what you get if you try to interpret wassily kandinsky paintings in novel form :) the whole thing is just absurd (and very deep, so it's hard to interpret) it actually reminds me of arthur rimbaud and an overarching theme is that music is an allegory for human life. can't wait to reread this

[Gloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

So fucking beautiful and strange: Kim Kyung Ju definitely deserves a wider readership and I'm so happy this kind of work is popular in Korea!

[pb · Rating 3 out of 5]

i think i need to reread this a couple more times. so much still left to glean from some of the pieces here.

[Brandon Amico · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Am a Season is imbued with a surrealism that bleeds into the very sentences. Kim Kyung Ju’s collection is poetry that indulges is image, syntax, song, but is beholden to none of them. It flies; every time the reader tries to nail it down and get a good look, it struggles free and takes off again. Challenging in the best way.