I saw a frog leaping upright.
Perhaps it wanted to become human.
Dr. Siyoung Doung is an eminent poetess from Korea, the Land of Morning Calm
Dr. Siyoung Doung graduated from the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Dongguk University and earned a Ph.D. in Korean Language and Literature from Hanyang University. She further expanded her academic pursuits by studying humanities at Regensburg University in Germany. Her teaching career includes positions as a professor at Korea Tourism University in Korea and Jilin University of Finance and Economics in China. Her literary journey began in 2003 with her poetry debut in the literary magazine Dacheung. Since then, she has published numerous poetry collections, including Future Hunting, In Search of a Strange God, The Phone Call from God, The Eyes of November, The Carnival of Time (Anthology), Was It You, Was It Me, or Was It Longing?, The Scent of Secrets, Aria of Everyday Life, The River Flowing Under the Pen, The Magic Letters, and The Horizon Never Gets Wet. In addition to poetry, Doung has contributed significantly to literary research with works such as Roh Cheon-myung’s Poetry and Semiotics, Korean Literature and Semiotics, and Semiotics of Modern Poetry. Her exploration of literature extends into travel writing, with essay collections like Encountering Culture Through Travel and Encountering Travel Through Literature. Her literary excellence has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the Park Hwa-mok Literary Award (2010), Poetry and Poetics Young Poet Award (2011), the Grand Prize at the Korean Buddhist Literature Awards (2018), the 32nd Dongguk Literary Award (2019), the Yeongrang Literary Award for Criticism (2020), and the 7th Woltan Park Jong-hwa Literary Award by the Korean Writers’ Association (2021). Most recently, she received the Literary Youth Work Award in 2024. In recognition of her contributions to literature, she was also a recipient of a creative grant from the Arts Council Korea in 2005. Dr. Doung is currently the President of the Korean Association of World Literature and lives in Seoul with her husband, a former university professor.
Like a Fourth -Person Narrator
Like a Fourth -Person NarratorI saw a frog leaping upright.
Perhaps it wanted to become human.
Is it not sad to be something other than human?*
Leaving memory open, the fleeing wind staggers.
Is it a daydream that longs for subordination?
Two scenes—flowers blooming and falling.
The magnolia blooms and falls at the risk of its life.
Green crosses over, growing dense,
The air wriggling like a feather.
Chance, thinning like oxygen.
Inevitability, growing like dust.
Into the evening darkness
Lights flow in.
The world becomes a river of fire.
In the river,
Countless roads that have lost their way, surge and sway.
Faces startled by tripping over the unknown
Circle around people.
People who build bridges only to become islands again
Are blooming everywhere.
One person, looking at books stacked after taking off thought itself,
Like a glass teacup on a table,
Asks quietly, “Am I sitting well?”
And touches anxiety.
Like a fourth person narrator**
Crossing in and out of humanity,
“He” wanders about wearing the clothes of “someone.”
Fearing even the loss of his shadow,
He gently shakes his own shadow.
“Is this the false self?” He speaks to himself.
* A transformed line from a poem by Louise Glück
** The narrator with a transcendent status in Olga Tokarczuk
*** Linda Hopkins, The False Self
***
사인칭서술자처럼
서서 뛰어오는 개구리를 보았다
사람이 되고 싶었나 보다
사람이 아닌 것은 슬프지 않다?*
기억을 열어 놓고 달아나는 바람 휘청댄다
종속을 꿈꾸는 백일몽인가
꽃 피고 지는 두 개의 장면
목련이 목숨 걸고 피었다 진다
초록이 짙게 건너오는,
깃털처럼 꼼지락대는 허공
산소처럼 희박해지는 우연
먼지처럼 자라나는 필연
저녁 어둠 속으로
불들이 흘러든다
세상은 불의 강이 된다
강엔
길이 잃어버린 길들 가득 출렁인다
모름에 걸려 넘어지다 깜짝 놀란 표정들이
사람들 주위를 가득 맴돈다
다리를 놓아도 또 섬이 되는 사람들
가득 피어 있다
생각을 벗어 쌓아 놓은 책 보던 사람 하나,
테이블 위 유리 찻잔처럼 ,
‘잘 앉아 있나’
불안을 만저본다
사인칭서술자 처럼**
사람을 넘나드는,
‘그’가 ‘누구’라는 옷을 입고 돌아다닌다
그림자마저 잃어버릴까
자기 그림자를 조금 흔들어 본다
‘거짓자기’일까? 자기에게 말 걸어 본다***
* 루이즈 글릭 시 한 구절 ,변용
** 올가 토카르추크의 초월적 지위를 가진 서술 자
*** 린다 홉킨스, 의 <<거짓 자기>>
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Read: Korean Poetry: Stream of Time
