KOREA ~ Bilingual Edition

$19.95

Han-Jae Lee

  • Size: 6 x 9
  • No. Pages: 322
  • Published: 2021
  • ISBN: 978-1-952194-04-7
SKU: PB20122 Categories: , ,

Description

In this third collection of poetry in English, the Korean born writer, Han-Jae Lee, continues to express a deep appreciation and kinship with all things – both natural and manmade. All objects – from flowers to tires to tattoos – carry equal weight and sensibility. All are vital and animated, as if we have truly arrived at “a beatific place,” where, lulled by the quiet understatement of the writing, we may find ourselves “forgetting every inextricably bound thing of this world.” The experience of reading these poems is at once like enjoying both the ephemeral and sensual, and the boundaries that blur between. In Apple Memories we are told, “More than the red fruit in my hands/these apples are made up of blue skies, water and wind/and pleasing sunshine.” And in The Sorrow, “I’m at the window with the green tea she sent me/I’m drinking the leisure hour of the afternoon/contained wholly in the tea.” With many earnest questions and imbued with a sense of longing, the poet encourages us to reflect and ponder our world and our place in it. In Into the Clouds we are given these lines: “The clouds are like magicians who build the world/ without any troublesome measures./ Clouds demonstrate that to live is like the arising of clouds/ and dying is like their disappearance.” Lines to contemplate throughout a busy day.   —Magdalena Montagne, poet-teacher