피의 절반
갈라지며 붉어지는 강을 보았지
첫번째 열쇠로 몸을 잠그고
두번째 열쇠로 피의 수문을 열 때
저녁의 벌어진 틈으로 꽃들이 철철 흐르고
겹쳐지며 사라지는 이상한 왕국이 생겨났다
몸을 뚫고 솟아오르는 뜨거운 꽃들
혈관을 돌아 나온 피들을
화냥의 입술이라 부르는 오늘
한 손으로 뺨을 어루만지고
다른 한 손으로 이마를 지우면
저녁은 피를 쏟으며 사라져간다
국경에서 헤어지는 연인처럼
얼굴이 수면 위에 걸칠 때
무너지며 세계의 경계를 흩어놓는 태양처럼
지워지는 씨앗
포도를 물고 웅크려 누운 밤. 꿈 밖으로 검은 액체들 흘러넘쳐 물렁한 살을 벗고 땅속으로 깊이 가라 앉는다. 씹지 않고 삼켰던 씨앗들이 뼛속 가득 뿌리 내려 혈관이 잔뿌리로 뒤덮이는데. 뿌리는 길고 가늘게 엮여드는 식물의 퀼트. 나무를 이해하고 뼈를 껴안으면 겉이 사라지고 몸이 여러 방향으로 녹아든다. 말랑한 것을 사랑해. 사이에서 맥없이 뭉개지는 것들을. 너의 뼈를 사랑할 수 있을까. 다친 무릎 사이로 하얗게 비어져 나온 수피. 씨앗은 나무의 후생이 아니라 잃어버렸던 애초의 조각이라고. 포도씨가 뿌리 속으로 서서히 흘러들 때, 마지막 남은 퍼즐을 맞추며 나무는 완성된다. 죽은 울타리에서 초록이 배어 나오듯 끊임없이 번져가는 얼굴들이 있음을 알아. 새로이 우거지는 숲이 있음을 알아. 포도나무 넝쿨을 내뻗으며 우리는 키스하지. 서로의 몸속에서 작고 단단한 씨앗 하나를 찾아 오래오래 녹여 먹으려.
뜻밖의 바닐라
귓바퀴를 타고 부드럽게 미끄러졌지. 미묘한 요철을 따라 흐르는, 그런 혀끝의 바닐라.
수없이 많은 씨앗들을 그러모으며 가장 보편적인 표정을 지니려. 두근거리며 이국의 이름을 외웠지. 그건 달콤에 대한 첫번째 감각. 사라지는 것들에 대한 각별한 취향.
녹아내리는 손과 무릎이 있었지. 차갑고 뜨겁게 흐르는, 접촉이 서로를 빚어낼 때. 소리의 영토 안에서 나는 세로로 누운 꽃. 손끝에서 점차 태어나. 닿아 녹으며 섞이는, 품이라는 말.
그런 바닐라. 적당한 점도의 안구를 지니려. 모르는 사람을 나는 가장 사랑하지. 잃어버리는 순간 온전해지는 눈꺼풀이 있었다. 순한 촉수를 흔들며 미끄러지다 흠뻑 쓰러지는.
붉고 무른 보석을 받고
녹지 않는 눈송이를 얻었다 말했지
매일 조금씩 자라나는 수포의 집
호흡을 멈추고 공기의 경계를 지우면
겹쳐진 혀 사이에서 깍지 낀 손가락 속에서
낯선 혈액이 배어 나왔다
고개를 숙이고 혀를 감추었다
입술 사이로 끈적한 즙이 흐를 때까지
흘러나오는 수액을 빚어
숨은 씨앗을 이루니
입에 넣고 아무리 굴려도 줄어들지 않던
작고 미지근한 열매가
한없이 부풀어 오르기 시작했다
라라라, 버찌
버찌를 따러 갈 거예요 붉푸르게 얼룩진 것들만을 골라 주머니 가득 담을래요 버찌, 서로를 베껴 쓰는 빨강 빨강들 환한 밤 내내 버찌를 가득 물고 곤란한 키스를 나눌까요
꽃도 잎도 벗어던진 버찌는 오늘, 그저 한 알의 유희
아직 그의 버찌는 익어 터지지도 못했는데 진물 흐르도록 섞이지도 못했는데 뭉쳐진 초록만 베어 물고 계절이 다 지나가요 우리, 너무 일찍 수확되었죠 그의 입속에 내가 가진 물감을 한가득 풀어놓고 싶은, 얼룩지는, 버찌의 시간인데요
뜻밖의 바닐라
Lee Hyemi
Listen to the original Korean read by the poet:
I found her while cruising the library. Assigned to find a poet whom I hadn’t translated before, I scanned the shelves of the poetry section until a title caught my eye: Unexpected Vanilla. I started reading and kept reading, immersing myself in Lee Hyemi’s sensual and surrealist poetics. I was instinctively drawn to it, and that was how I knew I’d found my next project.
But was it queer? There was the poem “The Cupboard with Strawberry Jam” that unequivocally addresses an unni, an older girl—and “Femdom,” whose title speaks for itself. It was all there in the text, and yet… It was a familiar feeling, of getting “vibes” from someone but not being entirely sure. I Googled, Naver’d, and even DBpia’d the collection, hoping someone would agree with and/or confirm my suspicions. But nothing! Almost every book of Korean poetry is accompanied by a critical essay, and the one for Unexpected Vanilla, with its thorough examination of Lee’s symbolism, didn’t mention any of her sexual references.
And yet… To borrow Juana María Rodríguez’s words, “It is sexual in the queerest of ways, meant to inspire intense feeling rather than reproduction; it is multisensory, asynchronic, polysemous, perverse, and full of promise.” Incidentally, three out of the three poems that Lee’s lesbian friends have jokingly criticized for being “too explicit” (in both senses of the word) were chosen by Asymptote.
In Unexpected Vanilla, Lee Hyemi writes a sexual present for readers to behold, a present that can’t be located within straight time. For this reason, I want to put Lee’s poetry in conversation with Mary Jean Chan’s essay “Queerness as Translation: From Linear Time to Playtime” in Modern Poetry in Translation, where Lee was first published in English. Chan writes, “Linear time suffocates; it forces the now into the future and refuses any meaningful engagement with the past. I want, instead, to inhabit a state of play—a form of playtime—where time dissolves and there is only being, breath, and the myriad of languages we allow ourselves to inhabit and speak.”
A special part of translating Lee was learning about her surrealist influence and considering how much of the spontaneous expression of the subconscious in a technique like automatism should be reflected in my own translation practice as well as the resulting poems. Well, today, kernels of play, I say!
But was it queer? There was the poem “The Cupboard with Strawberry Jam” that unequivocally addresses an unni, an older girl—and “Femdom,” whose title speaks for itself. It was all there in the text, and yet… It was a familiar feeling, of getting “vibes” from someone but not being entirely sure. I Googled, Naver’d, and even DBpia’d the collection, hoping someone would agree with and/or confirm my suspicions. But nothing! Almost every book of Korean poetry is accompanied by a critical essay, and the one for Unexpected Vanilla, with its thorough examination of Lee’s symbolism, didn’t mention any of her sexual references.
And yet… To borrow Juana María Rodríguez’s words, “It is sexual in the queerest of ways, meant to inspire intense feeling rather than reproduction; it is multisensory, asynchronic, polysemous, perverse, and full of promise.” Incidentally, three out of the three poems that Lee’s lesbian friends have jokingly criticized for being “too explicit” (in both senses of the word) were chosen by Asymptote.
In Unexpected Vanilla, Lee Hyemi writes a sexual present for readers to behold, a present that can’t be located within straight time. For this reason, I want to put Lee’s poetry in conversation with Mary Jean Chan’s essay “Queerness as Translation: From Linear Time to Playtime” in Modern Poetry in Translation, where Lee was first published in English. Chan writes, “Linear time suffocates; it forces the now into the future and refuses any meaningful engagement with the past. I want, instead, to inhabit a state of play—a form of playtime—where time dissolves and there is only being, breath, and the myriad of languages we allow ourselves to inhabit and speak.”
A special part of translating Lee was learning about her surrealist influence and considering how much of the spontaneous expression of the subconscious in a technique like automatism should be reflected in my own translation practice as well as the resulting poems. Well, today, kernels of play, I say!
Lee Hyemi is the author of Ultraviolet (Changbi Publishers, 2011) and Unexpected Vanilla (Moonji Publications, 2016). In 2006, at age 18, she became the youngest winner of the JoongAng Literary Newcomer’s Prize after novelist Choi In-ho won in 1963. Lee is currently a Ph.D. student in Korean literature at Korea University and enjoys deep-sea diving.
So J. Lee is a translator and writer. She studied English at the University of California, Berkeley. Her translations of Choi Jin-young’s To the Warm Horizon and Lee Hyemi’s Unexpected Vanilla have won LTI Translation Grants and appeared in Words Without Borders, Modern Poetry in Translation, and Korean Literature Now.
