MINING GOLD REY JEONG
This zine of visual poetry is part of Rey’s independent study with Jennifer Metsker during the 2021 winter
semester at UofM.
In Korean, there are no words (people aren’t using expressions for feelings); I am anxious, tensed, or uptight. Or even, I am just chilling, feelin ease, or relaxed. Instead, it has a larger spectrum of describing color of sky, texture of ground, and sound of ocean.
I learn English as an adult. Grammar is easily broken, sometimes(or often) I can’t find words in the right place. But, ironically, I found liberation in using words about my unconscious and emotions, which I never had in Korean.
Broken grammar gives me room for creativity in poetry. Using dictionary for synonyms gifts me beauty to play around with those unfamiliar words.
I wanted to be heard maybe by the world or by me.
Statement:
And loosen until Falling down to the deep-depth sleep. Oh, hibernation. Deep dive in a coral cave. Coma
I am listening to water drops fallen. Deep-dark sleep Hibernating until The dune is coming.
Hi there! Here I am. Hanging here. Hang tight.
Wailed to be loved Crushed to be hugged Yelled to be touched Scratched to be kissed Hit to be heard Shouted to be Just be. This vulnerable miserable tearful being How ridiculously beautiful. So embrace it until smashing its being and bones. How terribly exquisite.
Please don’t say you don’t know How poor you are.
this
love.
You said you want me to succeed. You don’t. My teacher said lie can be smelled Now I smell of your lies under your nasty smile.
I was witnessing the shapes of silent screaming: how the stinks disperse, drag, and finally dissolve. Pour soul. Please do not say anything - better sip your thoughts.
Poor being.
Hug tight and let you go. I cry for you - then forget who you were.
May
drowsiness vessel
care
a
using
the
care
chance
dizziness
you
sadness
or fear
Suddenly, I wake up from my dream. My pajamas mummified my thighs, waist and back like wet seaweed entangling a rock.
My body is warm enough to dry it out quickly. I feel my heart getting bigger and bigger, almost pumping out of my chest.
I hear the sound of my heart, not too fast, but sound loud. This is what my anxiety sounds like.
After my body’s fully dried by body heat, I stir from my dream and climb to the downstairs to start a pot of coffee.
You would go up, arise, and rise. Gravity grasps your core, hips, and the center of abs.
Feet are firm and grounded. Stand by themselves.
Walk like a fairy, like a butterfly touching nectar of a just bloomed flower, like the little tip of just hatched octopus’ toe swiping dust off a sea bottom. Fly like a heavy plummet jumping uphill. Like a lightened propeller falls down aside a waterfall.
and dives.
I witnessed a tiny soul taken away. I was with you, straying in a dark grey winter until your last breath. I beg replay wail like an untightened valve. My heart was on savage fire my body was shivering from the heat. You visited my dream the other day, came to sit on my right shoulder, your favorite spot, soothed me. I sobbed hard in dream as well as lightened reality.
I know I’ll become a wild bird in my next life drying feathers to swim in an infinite sky and following the path old souls drew. I’ll visit you to take a breath right next to you at any moment of a life.
During meditation, I had a hard time counting my breaths in/ out til ten. Went back to number one again and again. Lots of thoughts flew in and departed my mind. One image visited me repetitively and vividly. /Wilderness in the Ocean/ We water. We are water We are the water We are in the water
Water shapes us as it draws and carves the thousand year strata mercilessly. Engulfed in salty water through nose and lungs Tighten the windpipe.
Water eats us as we wade in it.
아홉번의 절. 엄마의 뒷 모습. 눈을 감고 깊게 되뇌이는 그녀의 기도. 깨끗이 닦인 유리병은 각각의 그녀의 기도를 담는다.
물을 가득 채운 채로.
Low and high pitched voice humming. I mimicked the humming - I thought it’s you. “Honey, you there?” Lingering, the humming near my ear.
/ I thought it was you./
At night, I was taking a shower with hot hot water, Shampooed my long hair.
You tell me: Pressure makes diamonds Have you seen thousands of tears, the drops, the liquid become a hardy crystal? How ridiculous, Giving up sanity to become what? to make an uncountable beauty?
What bout of tears, tragedy and traumas seep deep inside the diamond? Who else cares for the solid stone’s sadness and madness.
Yellow carries hope. It is royal. Warning you with care and love. It brings bright light and vibrancy to entire spaces wherever you are in. It is Ra, the Sun warming the earth. It hugs and energizes you leading to an unlimited world. It guides us in focus, joy, and happiness.
When I was a king back in the day, I wore a heavy golden crown, a beaming amber dress and gold earrings making clink sounds. It is a symbol of authority and opulence. You know lemon was born from everlasting gold Reminding you of innocence in your childhood To be spiritual To be eternal
Yellow blooms a life and a prosperous being.
I was driving my car slowly and weirdly. I drive Harvard rd crossover the walking street - almost hit people. While my car was stopped, one sister's siblings bike towards me, and the little girl around 3-4 years old’s mini bike very slowly hit the front area of my car. I went out and saw the accident. The girl told me she would buy a coffee for the compensation. I thought that was a good deal. I took a picture of it and told her that I will examine the car and let you know if anything needed to be fixed. And I held their hands and went to a store. A man (a part-time worker) brought the older girl and he paid for the cokes, and snacks. And we went to an instant noodle restaurant because the little girl was hungry. There were 40~50 different types of noodles ready to cook. In the part of the restaurant, there was a pottery class.
I am holding up no reason F e l l And swim through memory lanes I met her, my dear lost friend. Chase her. Oh, she chases me.
I didn’t lose her We let go.
Drink, from a small spring out of no where.
I lost her again.
A wave of sleep sweeps me over
물을 떠 놓았다. 오래된 영혼들에게 목 마른 자들 또는 길 잃은 이들을 위해 기도하고, 물을 준다. 여기, 목을 축이고 가라고.
I am made of one piece of gold, one flame, three scoops of soil, and three trees. No one told me that I need to be watered. I couldn’t know how to grow, expand, and reach further. I got a giant tomato plant last summer: It grew so fast. Whenever I moved the plant to a bigger pot, it grew so that the pot soon seemed confining. I saw myself in that withered tomato plant - like being captured in doldrums of the ocean. I admire things: fluid, soft, and transformative. Now, I pray with water. Water to coat my dry throat until it’s completely wet.
Soak in water until my fingers swell like a frog’s.
Scattered somber Smell of grapefruit overwhelms a tiny bath entirely. Sour and bitter taste in my mouth Sacks of it break apart, and I can hear further shouting with sobbing, but can’t hear then Seizing a peeled roundy fruit. Wait - was that somebody Shrieking? Whatever, My toes are immersed in the crying endocarps. A thousand peel pieces, membrane, and seeds. I bathe in orange, pink juicy marmalade. My cheeks stuffed with them, making my face twisted by its juice. Damn good, Absence of echo. One of the seeds has clogged my nasal cavity, EEK!
Melted by the citrus to become a yellow gold carnival.
My mom said “close to gold. It will make you sparkle.” Even gold - it is just one piece. Lack of gold without fluidity. Drink tea Walk in snow with bare feet. Collapse to deep dark And rise.
_ It’s forgiving Allows your minor mistakes With a stretch And It will be melted for you It softens like a liquid when it likes to be, Easy Unless taken with care, Fluid metal may become hard and solid.
_ Feel the Sensation in my whole body Heels, abs, buts, and shoulders What are you waiting for_?
_ Water bottles: holding water, blood, mucus, and tears. Is there a better word to describe us than that ?
_ It was a lightened bird Anti depressant: little bird becomes a huge hump whale. Hardly jump to the sky. Raking the bottom of the ocean. Sink, seel your eyes, and sing. _ I am on a sailboat, large Gentle nausea following dark deep orange waves. Drink water, feel better I forgot how to pray Where am I gonna land?
_ Witnessing layers of time covers your face, and body. Hug your soul and your old outer shell.
_ _Umma,_ _Thee calls ‘Umma—!’_ _Before I know,_ _my soul became a calming lake._ . laces of tides wet my toes floating in her lake - mouth is filled with sand watching lonely stars Soliloquy: Umma, Umma, Umma.
_
The sound of a phantom train makes me fall into a magical time warp. I am in a big dorm of the earth that all time and places are mixed. I pause during this ten second check out of reality,
Then, running in my own track.
Where I live is surrounded by woods and birds. In surreal moments, I hear a train running. I can’t see where the train comes and goes because I can only hear with my one ear. Still I feel a train near me with hundreds of people passing /this/ place.
Edited by Kevin Em Reviewed by Jennifer Metsker
Rey Jeong creates films, social sculptures, and dialogue among women of color by observing the intersections between race, gender, storytelling, and empathy.
Rey is from Seoul, and now lives in Ann Arbor while pursuing MFA at UofM. She refines misused English into creative reinvention for poetry. She loves wild birds.
Visual poetry / by Rey Jeong
Rey Jeong reyj@umich.edu reyjeong.com
2021 MFA Thesis Show Stamps School of Art and Design University of Michigan
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