불쌍한 사랑 기계

by Kim Hyesoon, 김혜순

시집 『불쌍한 사랑 기계』의 시들은 시간과 공간을 요리하는 기계들이다. 이 기계들은 과거로 미래로 끝없이 이어지는 시간을 계란말이처럼 도르르 말아 현재의 시간 위에 놓는다. 그리고 이곳 저곳의 공간들을 하 몸 속에 집어넣고 흔들어 뒤섞였다가 토해낸다. 혹은 내시경을 통해, 상상할 수 없이 크거나 육안으로 감지할 수 없을 정도로 미세한 것들을 보는 특이한 렌즈를 통해, 우리 앞에 그것들을 상영한다. 가지런한 시공간 안에서 우리는 그것들을 이해하려 해서는 안 된다. 고통스럽게 겪다 보면, 우리는 그것들이 우리들 욕망의 가시적인 물질임을 깨닫게 된다.

[시인의 산문]

나는 내 시가 프랙탈 도형처럼 세상 속에 몸담고 세상을 읽는 방법을 가지길 바란다. 울퉁불퉁하고, 미끌미끌하며, 변덕이 죽 끓는 이 세상 말이다. 이 세상은 해석할 수가 없다. 시는 이 세상에 몸담은 자가 이 세상(몸)이라는 형상을 이기려는 지난한 몸짓 아닌가.

여성은 자신의 몸 안에서 뜨고 지면서 커지고 줄어드는 달처럼 죽고 사는 자신의 정체성을 본다. 그러기에 여성의 몸은 무한대의 프랙탈 도형이다. 이 도형을 읽은 방법으로 여성인 나는 생명이 흘러들고 나아가는 길을 느끼고 그것에 따라 산다. 나는 사랑하므로 나 자신이 된다. 나는 사랑하므로 내 몸이 달의 궤적처럼 아름다운 만다라를 이 세상에 그려나가기를 바란다.

이 사랑은 태곳적부터 여성인 내 몸에서 넘쳐나오고, 그리고 거기서부터 고유한 실존의 내 목소리가 터져나온다. 그러나 이 실존의 실체는 고정된 도형이 아니라 움직이는 도형으로서의 실체다. 늘 순환하는. 그러나 같은 도형은 절대 그리지 않는
-김혜순,「프랙탈, 만다라, 그리고 나의 시 공화국」중에서

Genres: Poetry, Feminism

158 pages, Paperback

First published June 10, 1997

About the author

Born in Ulijin, South Korea, Kim Hyesoon (1955-) received her PhD in Korean Literature from Konkuk University, and began as a poet in 1979 with the publication of Poet Smoking a Cigarette. She began to receive critical acclaim in the late 1990s and she attributes this to the strong wave of interest in poetry by woman poets; currently she is one of South Korea’s most important contemporary poets, and she now lives and teaches in Seoul. Her poetry aims to strive for a freedom from form, by experimenting with language focusing on the sensual - often female - body, in direct opposition to male-dominated lyrical poetry. ‘They are direct, deliberately grotesque, theatrical, unsettling, excessive, visceral and somatic. This is feminist surrealism loaded with shifting, playful linguistics that both defile and defy traditional roles for women.’

Having published more than ten poetry collections, a number of these have been translated into English recently: When the Plug Gets Unplugged (2005); Mommy Must be a Fountain of Feathers (2008); All the Garbage of the World, Unite! (2011); Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream (2014) and I’m O.K., I’m Pig (2014). Tinfish has also published a small chapbook of three essays entitled Princess Abandoned (2012).

Throughout her career she has gained nearly all of South Korea’s most prestigious literary awards, named after the country’s greatest poets, such as Kim Su-yông Literature Award (1997), the Sowol Poetry Literature Award (2000) and the Midang Literature Award (2006). She was also the first female to win the Daesan Literary Award in 2008.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

another revelation!

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like thinking of the humidity in Hyesoon's surrealism. Like, on one hand, the elastic relationship between reality and invention has such ease and presence in each of the poems. I would even venture a language developing over the course of the book, where "rat" appears in many poems, and "roads," and "foods," and "water." So the humidity is partly this emergent language of images, where my reading wants to take account of each usage, and then think about how its meaning in one poem adds to the meanings that have been in the previous ones.

But the humid surrealism also comes in Hyesoon's movement in any individual poem. Like the opening poem, "Rat." "Enter the inside of the sunny morning, and it seems as if the scream can always / be heard." Who or what's screaming? I can't help but think it's the rat. And it's disturbing to imagine a rat's screaming sound always present. But then three lines later, the poem shifts the scream to night: "Do people know how much it hurts the darkness when / you turn the light on in the middle of the night?" And, though calling it a humid surrealism might not be accurate to the surprise of darkness being hurt by light, there is something to the closeness of the bending reality, the sudden reassignment of focus (from rats screaming to night) that has a denseness to it. And that's what makes me think of humidity, a sticky closeness to my reading experience. Because the poems are constantly shifting to some new focus like this. Two lines after this sentence about darkness hurting, there's, "Have you ever turned on the light inside your / intestine?" It's like the poet has been domiciled within her poem, and she's setting the imagery so each new image complements what was before.

I am fascinated by the logic emerging. A logic that has the sharp outrage of protest, as Don Mee Choi's "Translator's Note" reveals the culture Hyesoon was writing into, and the degree of feminist outrage present in the poems. But the logic is also that ridiculousness of surrealism, that bristles at normalcy for the sake of bristling, or delights in the abnormal for the sake of delight. And I realize that I'm often thinking about the relationship between poetry and politics. And especially how a poem that has a political intention behind it can feel both true to the politics and how the poem can most effectively amplify that truth through its poetic means. And I admire Hyesoon's book all the more for the many ways its reading registers for me.

[KJ Shepherd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Horrific images, dream logic, the call of the sea and the road and endless pots of broth and brine and filth, of ghosts and muses that always and never were, of animals that are humans and humans that are colors and body sludge that’s no longer human—all hinting at the horrors of neoliberal capital and the specter of American-backed authoritarian rule. At turns dizzying and breathtaking. The first half feels like a puzzle of a dream of a puzzle; the second half is where more variation and jaw-dropping moments happen. Again, brilliant.

[Jean Ni · Rating 5 out of 5]

!!!! So thankful to be able to read this poet’s visceral work. Incredible translator’s note at the end as well.

Translation = Antithingification

“She says her poetry did not appear to be political because ‘what I wrote about was cooking and my ingredient was death.’”