Enough to Say It's Far: Selected Poems

by Chaesam Pak, David R. McCann (Translator), Jiwon Shin (Translator)

This is the first English translation of selected poems by one of the most important and unusual modern poets of South Korea. In contrast to the strident political protests found in the poetry of many of his contemporaries, Pak Chaesam's work is characterized by intimate portraits of place, nature, childhood, and human relationships, and by indirection, nostalgia, and reflectiveness.


Often focused upon the border of this world and some other, Pak writes with a spareness of presentation but a cornucopia of imagery, meticulously exploring objective and subjective realms of existence and memory. Encouraging the reader to see and listen, and to allow the sensory to reshape the analytical, Pak's poetry opens up new realms of experience. A fellow Korean poet described Pak's poetry as being "the most exquisite expression of the Korean sense of han," or melancholy.

Genres: Poetry, Asia

184 pages, Hardcover

First published July 3, 2006

Reviews

[Seung · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book years ago. A beautiful sublime collection of Korean poetry that is different from what was produced during this time in Korea. Capturing the stillness and the movement of life itself. I bought this book then to work on my Korean reading comprehension; I forgot how much Korean has changed and how prevalent Hanja or Chinese characters were back then. However, the book presents a dual page format of the original Korean/ Chinese text on one side and English on the other. I found this book again as I was cleaning and planning to go through it again. This is a great book for reading in the woods.

[Melva Bintang · Rating 5 out of 5]

just beautiful