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Korean female poet releases revised edition of her famous poetry work

Korean female poet releases revised edition of her famous poetry work

Posted November. 03, 2015 09:04,   

한국어

"I polished my poetical work as if I`m polishing my nails."

At a cafe in Seoul Monday, poet Choi Young-mi spoke about the revised edition of her poetical work "Age 30, Party is Over."

"Age 30, Party is Over" is Choi`s first collection of poems. Since releasing it in 1994, the work became a bestseller with extreme words and cynical and straightforward techniques. Cumulative sales have reached 500,000 books, and Choi says it is a "blessing and curse, and has become my fate."

As if cutting fingernails, she has cut adjectives and adverbs from the first edition. For example, in the poem titled "Autumn within Me," the initial lyrics that go "I`m always autumn when wind blows," have been changed to "I`m autumn when wind blows." In the poem titled "My College," the lyrics "I can confess, perhaps, now" have been changed to "I can confess, now." A lyric that goes "I knew I would shed hot tears, recalling everything," has been changed to "I knew I would shed hot tears."

"When I was in the 30s I wrote what my mind told me, without filtering anything. A poem is about compression, and I wanted to cut out unnecessary modifiers," the poet says. "Senior poets have said that I wrote things without knowing anything. They said poems are written like that. In revising my work, I subtracted many things, but didn`t interpolate into it. I didn`t want to do plastic surgery to correct trails of my life."

The cover page has been changed from Mark Rothko`s "Black on Gray" with impressive red color to James Whistler`s "Angry Sea," a light brown painting. "The anger and despair in the 30s have shifted to the process of scar internalizing," Choi explained.

After releasing her novel "Bronze Garden" last year, Choi had been thinking of ending writing career after suffering from fatigue following her long creative work activities. Early this year, she had a chance to lecture a poet composing class at Gwanak District Office in southern Seoul where she was able to bring back her enthusiasm on poems. "Mothers and their middle school daughters, retired high school teachers, exam preparing people and single household seniors gathered to learn how to write poems," she says. I was impressed about their earnestness. This made me settle down and regain enthusiasm."

Choi says she will be writing about the era of the Three States going forward. "The current state of Korea, including the divided Yeongnam and Honam regions and row with North Korea, are not that different from the past situations between Goguryeo, Baekje and Shilla," she says. "As I did with `Age 30, Party is Over,` I will compose poems to be a record of life and times."



kimjy@donga.com