The Hell of That Star

Singular poetry made through censorship, elusion, and language renewal_x000D__x000D_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._x000D__x000D_[sample poem]_x000D__x000D_The tough after all_x000D_we still remain_x000D_and just in gathering it is lovingly_x000D_even while building each other's tombs_x000D_while patting each other's backs_x000D__x000D_But when each bird turns around_x000D_their arms flung! open_x000D_embracing tightly what_x000D_they do not even recognize as their grave_x000D_and they hug and hold harder and harder_x000D_stretching four limbs out over the laid sleeping mat and blanket_x000D_saying I love you I love you even in their sleep_x000D_In this world from which crying birds have disappeared_x000D_only I am left