Recent Books

The Postman

Mun Dok-su; Translated from Korean to English by Brother Anthony of Taize from: Poetic Matrix Press: 84 pp., $20

The Postman, the landmark 500-line poem by Korea’s leading modernist poet Mun Dok-su, has at last been translated into English by veteran literature translator Brother Anthony of Taize.

Inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s painting “The Postman Joseph Roulin,” the poem is subtitled “I Want to Be Reborn as a Postman” and consists of six parts.

The piece provides epical portrayals of the tragedy of war, terror, massacres and other crimes against humanity in an experimental form.

Oh Se-young, emeritus professor of Seoul National University, says that “an old poet, showing the intense avant-garde spirit, freewheeling imagination, unhindered use of off-beat images, and poetic sensibility defying the existing grammar, rings a warning bell to the mannerism of our prematurely aging poetic society in the 21st century.”

The book includes not only his poem but also commentary and reviews by Oh and Lee Tae-dong, literary critic and emeritus professor of English literature at Sogang University, as well as endnotes and Mun’s biography.

Though written by the octogenarian poet, the poem retains a vivid young spirituality as it searches for truth, freedom and humanism. The translation reflects the poem’s actual experiences and consciousness.

-Chung Ah-young