A titmouse in flight stops to speak,
Then is gone.
Poet Siyoung Doung is a Language and Literature Scholar of Korea
Hailing 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.
The Titmouse
The TitmouseIn the mountain where silence bustles,
Humming bees, wild birds, mayflies,
Is it a path half-floating in the air, or a mingled ringing of bells?
Ancient hieroglyph, a handful of rocks,
As they break open a door and yawn,
A squirrel slips into a mouse hole—its home, perhaps—
Then scurries, skittering away.
Into the whole mountain’s solitude, through the fissures of my monologue,
A titmouse in flight stops to speak,
Then is gone.
***
박새
고요가 붐비는 산속
나나니 꿀벌 산 들새 하루살이
반공중 길인가 혼합의 종소린가
고대의 상형문자,바위 너댓이
달그락 문 열고 나와 하품하고 있을 때
제 집인가 쥐구멍 들던 산다람쥐 한 마리가
재재 재바르게 도망쳐 나가고
산속 온
나의 독백 그 틈새로
날아가던 박새가 말 걸고 간다
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