The Hell of That Star (Paperback)

Singular poetry made through censorship, elusion, and language renewal

The 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 an essay by the author, with an introduction and notes by the translator.

[sample poem]

The tough after all

we still remain

and just in gathering it is lovingly

even while building each other's tombs

while patting each other's backs

But when each bird turns around

their arms flung! open

embracing tightly what

they do not even recognize as their grave

and they hug and hold harder and harder

stretching four limbs out over the laid sleeping mat and blanket

saying I love you I love you even in their sleep

In this world from which crying birds have disappeared

only I am left