The Hell of That Star - Hyesoon Kim

nSingular poetry made through censorship, elusion, and language renewal n nThe astonishing poetry collection The Hell of That Star enlivens the horror of Korean life under U.S.-backed authoritarianism. Poems of blows and vomit, births and coffins alternate blithe confidence and trembling terror. When slapped seven times by a government censor, Kim responded with defiant poems.

The death of language becomes a death of the writer; within death, Kim finds new life in fragmentation and reorientation. This singular volume provides a wild and rigorous study of the words of the nation-state and the self, as well as the deprivations, detainments, and surprises in between. In evading censorship, Kim's poems question, twist, and transmute; language is a site where the personal and political meet to escape containment, emptiness, and domestication.

The book includes essays by the author and translator. n n[sample poem] n nThe tough after all nwe still remain nand just in gathering it is lovingly neven while building each other's tombs nwhile patting each other's backs n nBut when each bird turns around ntheir arms flung! open nembracing tightly what nthey do not even recognize as their grave nand they hug and hold harder and harder nstretching four limbs out over the laid sleeping mat and blanket nsaying I love you I love you even in their sleep nIn this world from which crying birds have disappeared nonly I am leftn