Concealed Words

by Sin Yong Mok, Brother Anthony (Translator)

A debut English-language collection of hopeful and carefully attentive poems by one of South Korea’s most lauded young poets. This collection offers a selection of poems from Sin Yong Mok’s earlier collections, intended to serve as an illustration of his evolution as a poet, alongside a complete translation of the poems from his fourth collection, When Someone Called Someone, I Looked Back . Beautifully translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé with close attention to the sonorous aspects of Sin’s lines, this collection also captures the larger themes within Sin’s work and his attention to the spirit of community and peaceful coexistence with others. These are poems with a powerful belief in humanity and the beauty of the smallest hopes.

Genres: Poetry

207 pages, Paperback

Published November 22, 2022

Reviews

[Kamila Kunda · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Concealed Words” by Sin Yong-Mok is the collection of poetry, including selected poems from his older collections and the entirety of “When Someone Called Someone, I Looked Back” from 2017, that made me often gasp for breath and completely plunge into the realms created by the author. Superbly translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé, Sin’s poems are of such aching beauty and sorrow (the word Sin himself often uses) that is rare these days.

Sin’s poems are not easy to understand but I found them not too difficult to feel. A fellow poet compared them to dioramas and I find this epithet very apt. I have never read poetry of such imagination, such vivid descriptions, blending emotions, time, images, symbolism, philosophy and spirituality, creating thoughts and visions I had never encountered before. Reading Sin’s poems often felt like stepping into his most intimate dreams. It felt like a transgression, as if these poems were addressed by him to himself only (“Like how memories always open toward uncrossable places”, from “A Long-closed Window”).

Enormous pain is what struck me while reading many of Sin’s poems and even though I didn’t always understand the source of his pain, I empathised:

“Who was it that made humans to carry feelings around?
Intending to manage life between a dream and a dream
like carrying a smell from the supermarket
To the kitchen in a plastic bag
I don’t know who slapped my cheek
then attached that hand to my wrist.”
(fragment of “Map of a Murky Room”)

A certain level of cultural synesthaesia is also what made this poetry so powerful and so evocative (“I am hidden by the feeling of rain”, from “Hiker’s Report”) as well as references to the Buddhist perception of being, which resonated strongly with me.

It is hard to write about poetry and even more so about poetry that’s so multidimensional, so original and bewildering. I loved this book with all my heart. And if it wasn’t for the Tajfuny bookshop in Warsaw, where I bought it from, I probably would have never known about Sin Yong-Mok and his alchemy.

[Cody Stetzel · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there was one book I've read so far in 2023 that I would ask all others to read, it would be this. What an explosion of poetry, profound and vivid.

[JD · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the best poetry books read in the recent years.
Fresh voice with observation, narration, even description of events is very unique.
His capacity to name the emotion is outstanding!