Translators Ian Haight and T’aeyong Hŏ have forged a remarkable partnership in bringing the timeless beauty of classical Korean poetry to English readers. Their work spans centuries, breathing new life into poetic masterpieces originally composed in hanmun, or ‘literary Sinitic’, the written language of Korea’s past. Together, they have delivered evocative English renditions of Borderland Roads (2009) by Hŏ Kyun and Magnolia and Lotus (2013) by Hyesim—both of which were catalogued in The Routledge Companion to Korean Literature (2022). Their more recent projects include Ch’oŭi’s meditative An Homage to Green Tea (2024) and the eagerly anticipated Spring Mountain (forthcoming June 2025) by the poet Nansŏrhŏn, all from White Pine Press, a New York-based publisher.
Through their Korean Voices series, White Pine Press has long been a bridge between Korean literary tradition and global readership, featuring works by writers Park Bum-shin, Ra Heeduk, Park Wan-suh, Shim Bo-seon, Eun Heekyung, and translators Hyun-Jae Yee Sallee, Suh Ji-Moon, Kyoung-Lee Park, and Amber Kim, further cementing its role as a vital conduit for transcultural dialogue.
In this interview, I spoke with both Ian, based in Ramstein, Germany, and T’aeyong, in Pusan, Korea, on translating poetry originally written in hanmun, as well as the historical and contemporary divides between what’s revered as cosmopolitan and what’s relegated as vernacular—in language and broader cultural contexts.
Alton Melvar M Dapanas (AMMD): For readers who can read Korean literature only through translation, could you briefly explain what hanmun is? Why did Korean poets, before the invention of the Korean script (kungmun or chosŏnmun) in the mid-fifteenth century, write in this orthography? Additionally, how distinct are classical and contemporary language, ‘literary’ and ‘vernacular’ language, and written and spoken language in the modern Korean literary landscape?
Ian Haight (IH): Hanmun is the Korean use of classical Chinese to write literature. Kungmun is an older term for what we now call hangul in South Korea, which is the contemporary written language of South Korea. Chosŏnmun is pretty much the same thing as hangul, but it is for North Korea. There are some regional dialectical differences between chosŏnmun and hangul, and owing to the political ideologies of North and South Korea, there are also some differences in the words and how some words are written.
This can all be confusing because written Chinese has not disappeared from Korean written text. Chinese characters that appear in contemporary Korean written text are called hanja.
I would put the distinctions this way: Hanja refers to the Korean use of Chinese characters to write Korean words; not formal compositions of any kind, but rather singular words. You can find hanja intermixed with hangul in everyday written Korean, but even in that case the predominant textual language will be hangul. Hanmun is a classical written language of Korea. There is no hangul in hanmun writing.
Owing to its classical usage, contemporary Chinese and Korean people cannot read hanmun unless they are specialists. Hanmun could be used for any kind of classical text: prose, poems, legal documents, proclamations, etc. When I say “classical,” I mean a text written before the late seventeenth century, which is when hangul slowly began a process of wider use as a written language in Korea, regardless of the writer’s social class.
Hansi is poetry written using hanmun. Korean poets prior to the fifteenth century were using hanmun to write hansi because, owing to cultural influence from China, hanmun was the only language they had for writing. Hangul was invented in 1443 by the Korean King Sejong, who wanted to make it easier for common people to read and write. So there is an element of elitism to hanmun, and, perhaps even more so hansi, further complicating hansi as a text to translate from.
Regardless of the historically different ways to write the Korean language, there is and has only ever been one spoken Korean language. There are of course expected differences in how Korean is spoken (regional dialects, changes over time, social class usage, etc.), but there is only one spoken Korean language.
T’aeyong Hŏ (TYH): Hanmun (han = China, mun = script, or together, classical Chinese) syntax differs from that of hangul, and so hanmun was difficult and expensive to learn in Korea. However, hanmun had already had so much cultural, literary, and political influence before the creation of hangul that hanmun remained the official language for writing during the whole Chosŏn Dynasty (1392-1910). Official documents, letters between the learned, poems, and forms of prose all were written in hanmun. Hangul, compared to hanmun, is not only easier to learn, but is easier for quickly and directly writing down one’s thoughts. Hangul more closely matched how Korean people spoke and the Korean pronunciation of Chinese words. Overall, hangul was used by people who had no formal education.
AMMD: The Korean poets you’ve translated together span a remarkable range, from Joseon dynasty poets Hŏ Kyun (1569-1618) and Nansŏrhŏn (1563-1589) to Buddhist monk lyricists Hyesim (1178-1234) and Ch’oŭi (1786-1866)—all of them wrote in hanmun. Can you share insights into your co-translation process? How does it adapt to the differences in era and aesthetic among these poets, and are there any parallels in how you approach their work?
IH: What was the same across all texts, for me, was the formal use of hanmun to write poetry. So, for example, a short-form poem in this tradition has a regular syntactic structure all the authors utilized at one time or another in their texts. The structure for this kind of poem is five characters (Korean use of Chinese characters) to a line, four lines to the poem yielding twenty characters total for the poem. The syntax in each line was pretty regular: first two characters make a cluster of semantic meaning, followed by the next three characters which do the same. Generally the first two lines go together, followed by the last two which are similarly linked. Once I understood this structure in the poems it got easier to translate.
In terms of textual differences, longer sequences of prose were more challenging, particularly with the Ch’oŭi text. In some sections of that text there are longer sequences of prose where there aren’t any obvious characters that make a syntactic grouping. In that case I had to just look at the flow of language and sort of “piece meal” ideas together. To me this doesn’t feel disingenuous as a translation process—that’s just how the language worked.
T’aeyong had to walk me through all of this with incredible patience and commitment. My sense is that this was an adventure for him and a chance to explore some of the scholarly knowledge he had been given when he was younger, but it was less-used knowledge—until we began to work together. I am forever grateful for his dedication to the literature, and the work of bringing it into English translation.
TYH: Aesthetic points of view have varied through the eras—whether it be the twelfth, sixteenth, or eighteenth centuries—and writers have used a range of forms in these times (four or eight line poems with five or seven characters to a line, prose poems, commemorative poems, in addition to different kinds of prose), and there are so many forms and styles of poems from Korea, Japan, and China. I consider the whole of this as one body of poetry called hansi, which, in Korean, is a poem written in classical Chinese. This is the body of poetry we had to work with—a tradition of East Asian poetry we had to be aware of to be able to translate the poems we worked with.
Many hansi that we translated maintain formal structures of semantic prosody, such as the jueju, a Chinese quatrain poem with five characters to a line. It has a certain structure comparable to the sonata form in music:
Jueju/Sonata
Line 1: introduction/introduction-exposition
Line 2: development/development
Line 3: turn/recapitulation
Line 4: conclusion/conclusion
AMMD: Considering the various registers of speech and orthographies, how does translating classical Korean poets differ from translating those writing in contemporary times, particularly at the textual level? How do these differences influence your approach to the translation process?
IH: One of the things I like about translating hansi is how liberating it can be: verb tenses are usually floating, the number of a noun (singular/plural) is sometimes only a guess, intensifiers and adjectives—which can be misread as nouns—often exist in a line only to meet a requirement of rhythm. Taking this kind of language literally can be dangerous to a translator, because the language is not working in a literal sense; it’s trying to evoke an imaginary landscape, and do so aesthetically. The challenge here, then, is to try to understand authorial intent of what the possibilities are for the landscape, and to do it with at least a gesture towards the given aesthetics. I love that, because I get to try to live and think and feel as the author did in their time, place, and emotive instance, and offer an expression of this. I get to live in another creative world through this process of translation.
Translating hangul can be fun too. It feels like less imaginative discovery to me though; the language and how it is working is less ambiguous, and the grammatical structures are more indicative of authorial intent. The challenge is how to bring these understandings into poetry that appeals to a western reader. I suppose that in itself is another challenge: I try to only translate poetry that gives me a new understanding of worldview or perspective, even in a small way.
As far as a process T’aeyong and I shared when translating hansi, I can only return to the endless patience, kindness, and fortitude of spirit he constantly brought to our conversations about the texts we were translating. There was no element of cultural nuance too small, no splinter of historical context too obscure that he could not help me understand in the source texts we were working with. T’aeyong would occasionally go to the deeper academic labyrinthine libraries in Seoul or Pusan, call and meet with specialist professors of obscura language and literature, and he created his own small lexical library in his house. He did this all for the single purpose of helping me understand the authors of the poems we translated—their lives, their times, their language, and their idioms. It was then up to me to put it all together and make a poem.
Hangul translations I either did on my own or worked with students of mine at a university I was a professor at. When alone it was just me and my trusty dictionary. With my students, we ran a translation club at the university as part of a United Nations annual poetry event—the Dialogue on Poetry series created by Ram Devineni. Working with the students in the club was a similar process to what T’aeyong and I experienced, but it was far less rigorous because the language was less ambiguous, and the poems were more contemporary. The stakes were also a little different for the students: I think they were vested in the club for the cultural experience. T’aeyong and I had and still have a deep commitment to bring literature we love to the world.
TYH: To return to your question of textual differences, there are about 300,000 characters in hanmun. A single character has multiple meanings and diverse functions in a sentence as noun, verb, or adjective . . . any combination of two, three, or four characters is possible in a cluster and some of the clusters have particular idiomatic meanings. An interpreter of these clusters meets tremendous possibilities of combinations. Lines of a poem in hanmun often build up a poetic image, and this must also be considered.
Contemporary Korean poems written in hangul (han=韓=Korea, great, gul=글=文, script) can use any combination of Chinese characters, while adjectives of color or emotion in hangul have a long spectrum of gradation. Translation of contemporary Korean poems is much more difficult for me than poems in hanmun, even though both hangul and hanmun poems might describe the same emotion and thoughts of a Korean.
AMMD: How does solo translation compare to working with one or more co-translators? What does a typical conversation between the two of you look like during the translation process?
TYH: A native Korean working alone and translating Korean poems into English is possible, but I think two people who are both native speakers is better, if they understand and respect each other. The emotional interpretation by a native speaker of both languages is sometimes essential.
If I were to describe our translation process step-by-step, it would look like this:
- I explain meanings of each hanmun character.
- We discuss, come to an understanding, and shape the poetic image the poet intends.
- Ian writes this in English.
- We proofread how close the working translation is to the original.
- If we think it’s done, we let poet friends check the poem and offer revision.
IH: The conversations T’aeyong and I had could vary incredibly. In the beginning, we talked a lot about the forms of the poems—how the language was working syntactically to create meaning. The syntax clusters sometimes contained idioms, which meant there were units of characters within the cluster that needed to be considered together instead of as single characters. T’aeyong had to walk me through all of this, and so much more.
The historian in me always wanted background info on everything so I could not only contextualize what was happening within the poem correctly, but footnote any reference to a person, place, event, religious cosmology, legend, etc. mentioned by the text. The scope and minutiae of these conversations I think would have been maddening to anyone else. T’aeyong is a noble spirit though, and he gave his time and energy to this process in service to the arts. Gratitude just feels like such an understatement!
AMMD: Anecdotally, it seems literary journals in the North Atlantic are more open to publishing translations than in the past, but books of translated literature still sell less than other literary genres. Why do you think that’s still the case? And why should we translators keep doing this regardless of book sales?
IH: I think it is true that journals in the North Atlantic are more open to publishing translations, and that books of translated literature sell less than other literary genres. I don’t have any industry data to cite that would support anything I would say, but I will share my own experience and opinions.
It has been a little bit shocking to me personally regarding what journals will publish as far as literature in translation is concerned. Journals that are very far afield from the kind of poetry we translate—that for instance specialize in experimental poetry or contemporary themes in general—will publish esoteric nineteenth century Korean prose poems T’aeyong and I have translated that relate to ideal times to harvest green tea. It feels unimaginable, and maybe that’s why journals will publish material that feels so off-kilter from what is happening in contemporary American or world poetry. Journals, experimental or otherwise, want something different, something that is literary, something that stands out from the slush pile, something that aligns with their artistic vision, something that challenges literary tradition by reminding them what literary tradition is. Poems about journeys through a Taoist heaven, encounters with refugees in a war-decimated village, or leaving home to become a monk—as long as they are well-written (and translated)—tend to have a unique appeal that journals of all manner of prestige want to find a place for. None of this is an absolute understanding but I think it is a reasonable one.
As far as books of translated literature go, I agree, the sales are kind of dismal based on what platforms like Amazon say. I think it may be related to approaches to promotion though, and maybe pricing. I always sell books at USD1 above cost, and I always try to make readings cultural events. The green tea event last summer with Korean Connection (a west Michigan non-profit organization) was outstanding—we probably could have turned that into a national tour, the feedback was so positive, and the corporate sponsorship was not only there at the outset, but broadening with every event. In fact, I just heard today Korean Connection has approved another event for summer 2025, working with Professor Matthew Thompson from the University of Michigan and one of his wonderful students, Jack Morin. The event will be in support of Spring Mountain: The Complete Poems of Nansŏrhŏn due out from White Pine spring of 2025. You can see a video of Professor Thompson and Jack performing together here, if interested. I know it will be amazing!
To the point of book sales, they tend to be very strong at these cultural events—several of the titles I bring will sell out. I have been astonished to find middle school and high school kids wanting to buy the books and read them, parents standing by to pay. I think the kids are touched by the culture and the parents see the events as a family night out. So I think, in the end, there can be opportunities for vigorous interest in and sales of books of classical Korean poetry in translation, but sincerity, humility, motivation, and a not-for-profit attitude are all helpful underpinnings for successful sales results.
TYH: The more the better!
AMMD: Are there any Korean poets from antiquity who wrote in hanmun that you wish were more widely read globally or translated further?
TYH: One I would say is Kim Chŏnghŭi (김 정희), penname Chusa (추사). He was a famous poet, calligrapher, painter, and epigrapher of the nineteenth century (1786-1856).
IH: T’aeyong and I broke some ground on translating hansi by I Tal (1539-1612). Tal was the tutor for Nansŏrhŏn and Hŏ Kyun, who were brother and sister, and are significant figures in the Korean tradition of literature. We have already translated and published or scheduled to publish collections of poetry by Nansŏrhŏn and Kyun. No one has really thought about Tal, the man who gave so much in the way of poetry to Nansŏrhŏn and Kyun, and indirectly, to the Korean tradition of literature.
Tal’s poems are simple and straightforward. Whatever the topic—trying to buy a dress for his girlfriend, a hungry impoverished family living alone in a forest, a boy at a temple taking pride in boiling tea—there’s a kind of noticing of life that tonally denotes a clarity of the mind and its processes which make his poems stand out. We translated at least enough I Tal poems for a decent-sized chapbook. We might have enough for a full collection. I think all the poems by I Tal that T’aeyong and I have translated have been published, and several prestigious journals published them. I’d like to see these poems published altogether in some kind of collection someday.
AMMD: Literary translation from the Korean by translators like Chung Eun-Gwi, Sora Kim-Russell, Jin-Kyung Lee, and Shin Hyung Song populate the catalogues of publishers like Honford Star, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, and the presses of Seoul National University, Cornell, the University of Hawaii, and Columbia. Are there other translators working on Korean whose works you think the world should not miss out on?
IH: I think there are a lot of fine translators of Korean literature. Han Kang winning the Nobel is a testament to this. Chiyŏng Kim is a prominent translator and has done a great job of translating contemporary Korean fiction. A lot of people know about her but I would like to mention her—I’ve enjoyed her translations, for sure.
AMMD: If you were to teach a course on hanmun poetry, what anthologies and poetry collections would you wish to include as key texts? Can you name some poets that you would be inclined to incorporating into this imaginary syllabus?
TYH: I would recommend collections or anthologies of poems, not any specific poet. The books I would recommend are Comments on Korean Poems by Ha Kyungjin, which was originally written in hanmun in 1930 (동시화, 하경진 1930), then translated into Korean in 1995. I would only use this book if I were teaching students while speaking in Korean. If I were teaching students in English, I would include Korean Sinitic Poetry from Ancient Times to 1945, a collection of hansi translated into English. The book was edited and translated by Jang Wu Lee, Ji-Eun Lee, and David R. McCann, and was published by Brill in July of 2024.
Ian Haight and T’aeyong Hŏ have co-translated Borderland Roads: Selected Poems of Hŏ Kyun (2009), a finalist for the Grand Prix Prize for Translation from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea; Magnolia and Lotus: Selected Poems of Hyesim (2013), a finalist for the Stryk Prize of the American Literary Translators’ Association (ALTA) and listed as a Notable Book in Translation by World Literature Today; An Homage to Green Tea: A Collection by Ch’oui (2024); and the forthcoming Spring Mountain: The Complete Poems of Nansŏrhŏn (2025)—all from New York-based White Pine Press. Both recipients of grants from the Daesan Foundation and the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, Ian and T’aeyong’s collaborative translations appeared in journals and magazines such as, among others, Asymptote, The Poetry Review, AGNI, The Atlanta Review, and New Orleans Review.
Alton Melvar M. Dapanas (they/them) is Asymptote’s editor-at-large for the Philippines. They’re the author of M of the Southern Downpours (Australia: Downingfield Press, 2024), In the Name of the Body: Lyric Essays (Canada: Wrong Publishing, 2023), and Towards a Theory on City Boys: Prose Poems (UK: Newcomer Press, 2021). Published from South Africa to Japan, France to Singapore, and translated into Chinese, Damiá, and Swedish, their writings have appeared in World Literature Today, BBC Radio 4, The White Review, Sant Jordi Festival of Books, and the anthologies Infinite Constellations (University of Alabama Press) and He, She, They, Us: Queer Poems (Pan Macmillan UK). Formerly with Creative Nonfiction magazine, they have been nominated to The Best Literary Translations and twice to the Pushcart Prize for their lyric essays. Find more at https://linktr.ee/samdapanas.
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Read more on the Asymptote blog:
- Translation Tuesday: Two Poems from the Middle Korean
- The Infinite Potentials Between Korean and the World: A Conversation With Nicole Hur, Editor-in-Chief of the Hanok Review
- A Portrait of Twenty-First-Century Seoul: An Interview with Sang Young Park, Author of Love in the Big City