한국국제교류재단

This 2011 novel by Kim Ae-ran tells the story of a young man named Areum and his brief but brilliant life. He suffers from premature aging; at 16, he already has the body of an 80-year-old man. What this story is about, though, is much deeper.

Areum is obsessed with a task he hopes to complete before his 17th birthday: to write the story of his family. He begins with the story of how his parents met, gleaned from what they have told him. He is a keen enough observer to notice that their stories do not match up in all details, though, and mature enough not to be tempted to take one side or the other. He is, in fact, “on the side of the story,” as if the story were something that existed separate from the people who tell it.

No story is told without a motive, even if that motive is simply to entertain. For Areum, the story is a gift he intends to give to his parents, since he will not live long enough to win awards or earn a college diploma. Like any eager child, he wants to impress his parents, and he imagines that they will marvel at his rich vocabulary and elegant sentences. But this is only the surface layer of his motivation. When he appears on a television program featuring people in need, he ends up feeling wronged because he looks so much better on TV than what he feels inside. Thus he learns what it’s like when someone else tells your story.

The poetry of Kim Seung-hee, translated into English here by Brother Anthony, can be uncomfortable, even disconcerting to read, but like all good poetry it inspires a strong emotional response in the reader.

This collection, which brings together selected works from Kim’s last two collections in Korean, “Hope is Lonely” and “A Croaker on a Chopping Board,” takes a somewhat unique approach to poetry translation: it presents the Korean original and the English translation side by side. This is in recognition of the fact that, as the editor notes, translated poetry is neither English poetry nor foreign poetry, but something else entirely – something that does not replace the original but exists in an almost symbiotic relationship with it.

The collection has much to offer even to those who may not be able to read the original texts. While the poems might at first seem dark and sad, sometimes even chilling, there is hope and healing on the other side. The titular poem, “Hope is Lonely,” appears on its face to be a paean to despair, but a closer reading shows that it is a bitter love song to hope.

Despair is easy, but hope is hard, and yet the poet refuses to abandon it, calling it a “life sentence.” We may be reading Kim’s poems in translation, but her voice rings out, shaking us to our senses and pointing us toward the light.

DKDKTV got its start in 2016, when creators David Kim and Danny Kim decided to combine two popular trends: K-pop and reaction videos. Ironically enough, they weren’t originally fans of K-pop, but after developing an interest in groups like BTS, Big Bang and EXO, they began reacting to popular K-pop videos, offering their Korean perspective to an English-speaking audience. As these videos gained traction, the channel began to branch out into other video series. Today, DKDKTV has over 700,000 subscribers and a loyal fan base with its own moniker: the Ducks. Danny, David and other regular and guest hosts bring the Ducks the latest news and happenings in the K-pop world.