Following the convening of Hong Kong International Poetry Nights 2013, The World of Words is a collection of selected works by some of the most internationally acclaimed poets today. The poem of "amazing, how amazing it is, every night of the shining sun" by Lee Seong-bok (South Korea) is finest contemporary poetry in trilingual or bilingual presentation.
Lee Seong-bok (1952–), recipient of Kim Soo-young Literature Prize and Kim So-wol Literature Prize, has continually attracted attention to his highly imaginative and multi-layered poetry. Influenced by Kafka, Nietzsche and Baudelaire, Lee’s first volume of poetry When Do the Rolling Stones Awake shocked readers with its daring use of free association to expose the hypocrisy, corruption and perversity of this world. In this volume, the poet occupies the place of a clinical pathologist who dissects familial and social structures, and meticulously records their gradual disintegration. His second book Mt. Geum, Nahmae, shaped by the poet’s new interest in the East Asian classical literature, largely deals with the question of love’s essence. The subject continues to engross Lee in subsequent volumes as well, and he creates an alternative grammar of love to the modern notion of romance. Driven by a spirit of innovation, Lee heralds a poetic revolution that influences both his contemporaries and younger generation of poets.
The critic Kim Hyoun has said of Lee Seong-bok’s poetry that “it vastly expands its sphere of meaning to permit endless questions to be raised, not only on an individual or private level, but on the collective and public one as well.” Moving unceasingly between binary categories, Lee’s poetry thus brings into view the fundamental relation that lies beneath human life.
Lee earned both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in French literature from the Seoul National University. He worked as Professor of French literature and creative writing at the Keimyung University.
His major works include When Do the Rolling Stones Awake (Dwingguneun Dol-eun Eonje Jam Kkaeneunga, 1980), South Sea, Silk Mountain (Namhae Geumsan, 1986), End of That Summer (Geu Yeoreum-ui Kkeut, 1990), Memories of the Holly (Horanggasinamu-ui Gieok, 1993), Oh, Those without Mouths (A, Ib-I Eomneun Geotdeul, 2003), Ripple Patterns on the Moon’s Forehead (Dal-ui Ima-eneun Mulgyeolmunui Jaguk, 2003), Came, and Saw Sorrow Was All
(Rae Yeo Ae Ban Da Ra, 2013).
1 1959(第6頁)
1959 年(第7頁)
1959(第8頁)
2 出埃及(第10頁)
出埃及(第12頁)
exodus(第14頁)
3(第16頁)
夏天的山(第19頁)
the summer mountain(第21頁)
4(第24頁)
那年秋天(第27頁)
the summer mountain(第27頁)
5(第33頁)
關於歲月(第38頁)
about time(第43頁)
6(第51頁)
現在只說遲到的愛來得不是時候(第53頁)
now only about love that came at the wrong time, too late(第54頁)
7 序詩(第56頁)
序詩(第57頁)
prelude(第58頁)
8(第59頁)
歲月的褶皺,記憶的斷層(第60頁)
the folding of time, the dislocation of memory(第61頁)
9(第62頁)
高聳的松林(第63頁)
the forest of tall pine trees(第64頁)
10(第65頁)
新奇啊,新奇,每個陽光燦爛的夜晚(第67頁)
amazing, how amazing it is, every night of the shining sun(第69頁)