Lee Sumyeong Surreal-Absurd Sampler
In his 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, Andre Breton wrote that “Swift is Surrealist in malice, / Sade is Surrealist in sadism. / Chateaubriand is Surrealist in exoticism.” Lee Sumyeong might be described as being surrealist in the quotidian. The oneiric dimensions of Lee’s poems are characterized less by heterocosmic displacement or absolute logical disseverment than by an intense defamiliarization of the mundane—one sometimes so extreme as to be anti-anthropic in its effects. Often, the imperilment of the human subject occurs via a kind of uncanny animism: “plants”, “minerals”, “strings”, “night” etc. take on the sort of pneumatic energies that are usually reserved for human agents (or proxies thereof). At other times, mundane activities or states such as “meeting”, “saying”, “occupying”, or “residing” are subjected to such pressure that they seem to lose traction as human categories. Lee's surrealist inflections can also be formal, right down to the most granular levels of punctuation and grammar. Note, for instance, how some of the full stops in “night’s formation fliers” confound the expected periodicity, or how “congested area” ends with a tantalizingly awkward aposiopesis.
My translation choices have sometimes added further torque to Lee’s quotidian surreal. To give just one example, I opted, in “right to the top”, to render the Korean “나무토막” as “woodblock”. This single-word translation mirrors the bipartite compound noun of the Korean, and it also (to my ears) possesses the right cadence. Even so, it feels ever so slightly off, atypical. The safer choice would certainly have been the periphrastic “block of wood”, which, in addition to having more currency in English, would have foreclosed the possibility of introducing extraneous semantic layers (woodblock printing; woodblock instruments). But the translator must have a feel for when the wrong notes are in fact the right notes. Moreover, Lee’s poetry is already teeming with its own wolf tones and dissonances—some of which cannot be carried over into translation. If at times I have availed myself of the opportunity to intensify the surrealist inflection of some or another quotidian item, readers can be assured that some of Lee’s own surrealist twists are more intense than their translated equivalents. For me, such discrepancies—internal and external—are a big part of what makes Lee’s poetry so compellingly mercurial.
- Colin Leemarshall
right to the top
On water being carried away
a carried-away
woodblock
an infected
woodblock
being carried away on water is called “woodblock.” Persisting as cold volume is called “woodblock.” Passing through all passageways, searching for an opportunity to drag and scatter themselves
one two ten woodblocks
the woodblocks do not awake.
Woodblocks try to possess plant skin. Do a lap of the town trying to resemble plants. Try copying shiny mineral skin in water. Try regulating the world’s minerals. Along the outdoors
along the surface
not waking. At the surface
the woodblocks drown.
Drown into surface.
Clasping a woodblock
the clinging things rising things
things all undone
are becoming in common.
Are becoming undifferentiated from surface.
Let’s hover into undifferentiated shapes
let’s be here and be there
if the head-hair clings to the whole of the body let’s go right to the top
sparkle
night’s formation fliers
Help night.
Through the night
unable to hear any words
the gushing night
the flowing night
the lung-piercing night
back from running errands
dropped the errands.
At the entrance to the shopping arcade were scattered outsiders.
There was a man goading a woman a woman goading a man. Say it say it say it face screwed up say it
I will end this relationship
help night.
Constrained and wandering night
pallid night
unapproachable night
corpses on corpses
keeping tempo
chests torn.
Lettuce, crowndaisy, perilla, minari, placed in a basket. Blue things the things bluely held in place were collapsed. Lifted up and put down a basket.
A pliant night a pliant corner
the gleams staggering past
from buildings not being built half-built
buildings a resonant say it say it say it
a say it in vain
irrevocable night
the night drives everything into the night.
The night returns to the night and
along with the night the night is completely full.
Red strings were going around rooting through night. The bundles that were tied to the strings the black vinyl bags were going around. The ends cut and loosened the hands were going around. Cannot lie down on night and
no one can lie down on night.
Help night that does not carry a form
a formlessly
opening night.
To extended hands
ungraspable night
not coming and
halted night
somewhere some too-small lizards appear. And during the night
clear the night.
congested area
There are times when someone asks have you lived in this area long? If someone asks an answer is required.
I left I got away from the area
which area do flowing people flow back to
at a different place there is a different area. I hope I don’t enter the place that I want there are people putting up signs in each area so I bump into area. There is an area reading under repair.
Chasing unknown
lengthy constructions
walking stooped. Must return from here I am saying but there is no voice. The road is congested and the roads are numbered. It seems I have seen the numbers a number of times.
Covered with numbers. This area these buildings these goods from the shopping complex have all put on numbers and adjoined. There are people putting numbers on backs and running. There are people looking at it and spearing forks. Forks are congested. Today at this area I finally congest.
But how exactly it had been possible to go in
today ah that reminds me
Today ah that reminds me I have a promise to keep. Put on new gloves and feel my forehead. The promise is ashamed. Cannot lie down next to the promise. Like this I want to stay with the plants that pump out plants. Want to scrub the plants until dyeing the hands blue. Any stuck-out tongue is blue when the promise is activated.
Today ah that reminds me I have no character. Do not have today’s manners. I unthinkingly want the cruise ship’s floating manners. Want to confess the cruise ship’s being swept away faster than the water. But the water has already exploded so I cannot go inside if today could just be manners so I could go inside
residents
Angry at residence
residents are gathered. Complex 1 complex 2
into a complex into a complex
crying children enter and because the complex spills out
there are so many complexes so
they are living in the same complex
Beautville Pineville Lornville
tying the villes and tying the hair and had a headache.
Strange-looking ballpoint pens have fallen. They are far away from a classroom that with sufficient encouragement had developed good handwriting and could spell its name. Ink becomes ink that does nothing and becomes ink that sets no ballpoint pen upright and stains no hand and is a night kicked by anyone made by anyone.
Complexes have formed long lines left and right as though trying to repel the air. When the sun descends unexpectedly in the distance no word is given despite the complexes not being illuminated. When no word is given the news that no word is being given arrives and word spreads. Men spread and women spread and men and women spread. They have a meeting and are angry and while having a meeting they are angry and
are crowded and they crowd and divide the classes again. Class 1 and class 2 are the same class they are house numbers 1 and 2
they are the same class but it is unclear whether they are the same house but they are the same class
the residents look like a residence.
They look like the morning paper and the evening paper.
The morning paper becomes the evening paper and the morning complex enters an older
complex and beyond the complex new complexes
surge emitting strange imposing screams. Residents keep taking out the new complex and patrolling the old complex and circling the same ville and
everything will be okay.
Finding out their accommodation will be difficult.
They lay planks and there are people lying down and because they touch some of the planks to the bodies the planks become signs and become specimens and become tickets and the timetables the number slips the name cards go around
between the complexes where complex 1 complex 2 accumulate the pipes buried in the walls accumulate and
residents rush
bodies blurred
the residents are flawless. The residence’s contempt is flawless.
While keeping daily appointments with each other residents share grievances about the discomfort of residence.
Get along perfectly.
Lee Sumyeong was born in Seoul in 1965. Her poetry collections to date are New Misreading Filled the Streets (1995), Herons Play Heron Games (1998), Curve of the Red Wall (2001), Cat Watching Cat Video (2004), Always So Many Rains (2011), Just Like (2014), Warehouse (2018), and Gas Lines (2022). Her critical writings include the monographical study Kim Gu-yong and Modern Korean Poetry (2008), two books on poetics titled Crossing (2011) and The Poetics of Surface (2018), the essay collection Era of the Air Raid (2016), and a selection of various prose works titled I Saw Chilsung Supermarket (2022). In addition, she has translated several texts into Korean, including books on Romanticism, Lacan, Derrida, and Joyce. She has received several Korean literary prizes for her work.
Colin Leemarshall lives in South Korea. He runs the print-on-demand press Erotoplasty Editions, which sells innovative and idiosyncratic books of poetry at cost price. His translation of Lee Sumyeong’s Just Like is due out with Black Ocean in 2024.
