Korean Short Stories
Kim Sa-in Sleeping on the Street 노숙 Translated by An Seonjae
Information This work was previously published in New Writing from Korea . Please contact the LTI Korea Library. library@klti.or.kr
About Kim Sa-in Kim debuted in the journal Poetry and Economics (Shi wa gyeongje) in 1982, during the period of the military government’s oppressive rule. He chose to respond to the pain of the period rather than ignore it, as he made clear in the preface to his first poetry collection: “fragments of an ungoverned rage and pain tear at the heart. But by what other method could I have afforded food in the 70s and 80s?” He therefore tries to foreground “the human” in his poetry. His poems adopt a disciplined form, but the subjects described in them are people from the general walk of life, often deficient in character or even stupid-sounding. The poet thus confesses, “I feel the warmth of humanity more in naivete and clumsiness, rather than in perfection and smoothness.”. Kim defines writing poetry as ‘questioning things tirelessly’. But he emphasizes that the poet not only asks questions: he must also be one who finds answers and actively puts them into practice. By the same token, reading poetry means to participate in the poem with one’s whole being, to become a part of the poem. Kim’s poetics involves engagement with the poem, both by the poet who writes and the reader who reads. Poetry without full participation has no meaning. LTI Korea eLibrary: http://library.klti.or.kr/node/53
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Sleeping on the Street Removing your clothes like old newsprint I lay you down raw on a damp mattress and look down on you. Your gnarled hands and feet have lost their vigor How weary the skinny limbs and ribs look. I'm sorry. Using you, I earned a living, got a woman and set up house but the only things left are stale sweat and a nightmare road. Again I laid the pure thing you are in a secluded corner of unfamiliar ground. Alas! I'm not saying there were no good days, yet the way to paying even a meager wage for your labors is far away. Now I'm wondering if I would like to go away quietly, simply leaving you sleeping here. What about it, body?
Copyright 2008 Literature Translation Institute of Korea
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