This poem in translation is surreal in its portrayal of grief. It has a recurring image of a bird who is a figure for death and grief after the loss of the poet’s father. Don Mee Choi’s translation of the poem captures the eternal emptiness of grief. Repetition mimics grief’s insistence: “Bird cuts me out” in the first and third stanzas, “I’m leaving” and “I’m taking a step toward where I don’t exist,” which is repeated twice at the end of the poem. The form of the poem shows how sadness changes within standstill. The second and fourth stanzas echo but diverge, until we get the callback and negation in the last stanza: “Bird don’t cut me out.” The last line, “Behind the wall I’m on standby forever,” channels the energy of a lyric, a sense of running into place. Selected by Victoria Chang
Going Going Away
By Kim Hyesoon, translated by Don Mee Choi from Korean
Bird cuts me outside
like the way sunlight cuts shadows
Hole comes in
the place where I was cut
I’m leaving
Bird cuts me outside
like the way time cuts me
Gaping mouth enters
the cutout
I leave through the open mouth
then return like a cut-out child
i’m leaving again
I’m taking a step towards where I don’t exist
I’m taking a step towards where I don’t exist
Bird won’t cut me away
Behind the wall I’m always on standby
Victoria Chang has written five collections of poems, most recently “Obit” (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), which was named a DailyExpertNews Notable Book and a Time Must-Read. Her nonfiction book, “Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence and Grief,” was published by Milkweed Editions in 2021. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the MFA program at Antioch University. Kim Hyesoon is a South Korean poet whose work has won the Midang and Kim Su-Yong awards. Her collections include “Autobiography of Death” (New Directions, 2018) and the forthcoming “Phantom Pain Wings” (2023), from which this poem is taken. Don Mee Choic is a poet and translator whose work includes “DMZ Colony” (Wave Books, 2020).
