54th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Poetry Commendation Award: A Bright Room
Cover of Hwang In-chan’s poetry collection "Let’s Say This Is My Heart," which includes "A Bright Room" / Courtesy of Munhakdongne
Written by Hwang In-chan
Translated by Levi Lee
A Bright Room
In truth, I can see ghosts—Grandmother’s ghost is standing by your side right now and a ghost of a dog is floating about behind her
Would you believe me if I told you this?
The photographer tells me to open my eyes wider, but I reply that they are completely open
Because I’ll see too many things if I open my eyes completely
The bird that I buried just earlier in the playground is flying around the living room, I meet a friend who’s unaware of the ghost on his back, and I hear that there is no playground there
It’s always difficult to distinguish
If the figure greeting me from afar is a person or not
And there are times when you talk to me—not realizing that you’re a ghost yourself
You still believe that you love me
The angels that brought you hover in circles above—if I close my eyes for a moment, everything will disappear
(Someone closed their eyes so I’m going to take another one)
The photographer tells us to open our eyes wide, but I reply that I can’t open them anymore
A dead bird
Gets ready to fly from your mouth
Windows on the Left, Doors on the Right
All the classrooms in my memory have
windows on the left, doors on the right
You’re always by the left side windows
Beyond them is the light
An angel with a big head is floating in the air
and a scene of a missile and meteor crashing together
Such a scene isn’t in my memory, but
windows on the left, doors on the right
But I had these memories
The day I gazed at you sitting by the window
with the classroom’s back door half open
I was amazed because the nape of your neck in the light was so white
That was my first
There’s no reality in your poetry
Well, you don’t even exist in reality
Although all I could see outside the windows was white light
Although I already knew quite well that there’s nothing more than that
Windows on the left, doors on the right
Someone was shouting that only the dead walk to the left
Saving That Sun
Together with the summer sun
a bird flew into the house
He makes a commotion that the bird frightens him
and the bird walks with hurried steps around the whole house
Like it’s looking for something
But the bird doesn’t find anything
Just pokes around here and there
And on every such occasion, he lets out a shout
Wondering how it could have gotten in when all the windows are closed,
he flings the windows wide open
Hoping the bird leaves on its own
But the bird didn’t leave
and he looked at me with a face on the verge of tears
Since then, the bird lived here for a long time
Although it finds nothing, it pokes around the house like it’s looking for something
Even though it saw the windows wide open
after he left
The bird found nothing
Happiness of Humanity
There are ducks walking in a line on a lawn, and
that’s the happiness of humanity
That’s the sadness of humanity
Sadness is not being able to go back home when your feet are wet with rainwater, a child says
The teacher just laughs instead of answering
The ducks keep poking at the soil as if something’s there
raising their tail feathers and shaking their butts
I won’t return home, the child thinks
The ducks are floating on the water—the soil is left disturbed