'Poetry consoles the human mind'

Poet Jeong Ho-seung, left, and Brother Anthony of Taize / Korea Timesp photo by Choi Won-suk

Jeong Ho-seung publishes English poetry book for first time

Cover of Jeong Ho-seung’s poetry collection in English “A Letter Not Sent,” translated by Brother Anthony and Susan Hwang

By Yun Suh-young

Jeong Ho-seung, one of Korea’s representative poets, has released his first book of collected poems in English.

“A Letter Not Sent,” released July 20 by Seoul Selection, is a collection of poems selected by the poet and published back-to-back with the translated English version. Jeong’s poems were translated by Brother Anthony of Taize, who is professor emeritus at Sogang University in Seoul, and Susan Hwang, a PhD candidate studying Korean modern literature at the University of Michigan.

The dual-language poetry book contains 108 poems from Jeong’s 40 years of work. Among thousands of his works, Jeong selected 220 to be published in two books — the first “A Letter Not Sent” and the yet to be titled second one containing the rest of the poems, set to be released in September.

Jeong’s poems, translated by Brother Anthony and Hwang, have been serialized in The Korea Times since July 2015.

“It is an immense joy to have the poems translated and published in English because it expands the spectrum of poetry readers,” Jeong said in an interview with The Korea Times, Wednesday. “My poems had been confined to the Korean language but now they are being reproduced in an enlarged scale to reach the global English-speaking audience.

“I’m glad that the poems have been able to enter into the sphere of world literature. If they were only in Korean, they would never be included as world literature. But this is a start.”

Brother Anthony said Jeong will be starting from scratch in the overseas market.

“You can’t export a reputation,” he said. “With the translated book, he will establish a completely new reputation.”

Jeong is a widely loved poet in Korea who is known for his heart-consoling poems, notably “The People I Love,” and “A Letter Not Sent,” which is the title of the book. The latter is also the name of the popular song sung by the late Kim Kwang-seok, whose lyrics were inspired by the poem.

“Poems console people and help them understand their pains in life,” Jeong said. “Poems are the flowers of pain. It draws up pain and then blossoms, much like the lotus flower which roots itself in mud but blossoms into a clear flower. That is the basis of life. I think we are born from tragedy but everyone has something to blossom. For me, that was poetry. For others, it may be something else, such as music.

“I believe the artistic genre, including poetry, adds abundance to the lives of human beings. Night wouldn’t be night without the stars shining in the dark sky.”

Jeong said he hopes that foreign readers understand the lives of Koreans through his poems, beyond understanding the lives of humans in general.

“Reading the translated poems will help them understand how we live as Koreans,” he said.

Brother Anthony said idiomatic translation was the most difficult part of the translation.

“I’m a conservative translator,” he said. “I try to translate as it is because they’re his poems, not mine. I constantly mull over how to make them be exactly as his, but in English.

“Often, when Western translators translate colloquial language, they make the words sound like they are coming from Yankees. But then, where is the Korean-ness? So I try to make it ’feel’ Korean. It’s hard to distinguish the aesthetics, though.”

Brother Anthony, whose Korean name is An Son-jae, is a Briton who became a naturalized Korean in 1994. He came to Korea in 1980, invited by the late Cardinal Kim Soo-hwan who came to the Taize Community based in France and asked for the brothers there to help the Koreans. Ever since, he has lived in Korea, teaching and translating.

The difficulty of translating Korean poems depends on the poet, he says.

“Korean poems are often written in an allusive way and sentences may not be exact sentences,” Brother Anthony said. “Korean phrasing is different — it’s the order in which phrases come that may be hard to translate.

“Some people use obscure words but Jeong’s poems are not that difficult. The main thing is the flow — the poem is going to flow somehow.”

He said Jeong’s poems were “very human,” when asked to characterize them.

“It’s inspirational the way he talks about love and pain, and time and loss — all which are very universal themes. They offer the readers the hope that somehow they will succeed.”

He also said Jeong is “not self-centered.” “Some like writing about themselves, but his poems are always about community and sharing,” he said.

Brother Anthony began translating Jeong’s works four years ago, first by choosing one of Jeong’s works, “The Price of Food,” from a list of Korean literary works recommended by the Korea Literature Translation Institute, which funds translators when they apply to translate Korean literature.

“I have always wanted Brother Anthony to translate my work, but I never told him so,” Jeong said. “I couldn’t dare ask him to do it. So I waited, quietly. But somehow he decided to translate my work and naturally I had the opportunity to meet him.

“It’s a huge honor and joy. I think his role as a translator is equal to a poet.”

When asked which poem they would recommend from the book, Brother Anthony said “The People I Love,” because it’s the most loved poem in Korea, while Jeong said “Seoul’s Jesus,” because he wanted to recommend it to foreigners.

“Everyone in the world knows Jesus, so I think this poem will be worth reading,” Jeong said. “It’s one I wrote when I was 29. It is based on the dark and oppressive days of the 1970s and ’80s during the dictatorship. I wondered what Jesus would do, what life he would lead if he came to Korea during those times. It’s a longing for Jesus, a being of love and hope.

“I try to hide the historical references in my poems because I want them to have permanence. Poems should be timeless.”