Two Translations of Poet Shim Bo-sun (심보선)
Gitte recommended Shim’s work, so I went ahead and translated a couple of his poems from his collection 슬픔이 없는 십오 초 (Fifteen Seconds Without Sorrow).
나를 환멸로 이끄는 것들 / 심보선
태양
오른쪽
레몬 향기
상념 없는 산책
죽은 개 옆에 산 개
노루귀 꽃이 빠진 식물도감
종교 서적의 마지막 문장
느린 화면 속의 죽음
예술가의 박식함
불계不計 패
변덕쟁이들
회고전들
인용과 각주
어제의 통화 내용
부르주아 대가족
불어의 R 발음
모교의 정문
옛 애인들 (가나다 순)
컨선턴터의 고객 개념
칸트의 물物 자체
물 자체라는 말 자체
라벤더 향기
아래쪽
토성
Things Drawing Me Towards Disillusion
sun
to the right
smell of lemon
a walk lacking ideas & musings
a live dog next to a dead dog
book of plants without Hepatica Asiatica
the last sentence of a religious text
death inside a slow motion scene
an artist’s erudition
defeat by a wide margin
those fickle bastards
autobiographies
quotes & footnotes
the phone conversation from the day before
large bourgois family
prouncing the French r
the main gate of your alma mater
ex-girlfriends (in alphabetical order)
a consultant’s customer relations
Kant’s thing-in-itself
the expression ‘thing-in-itself’ itself
fragrance of lavender
downward
Saturn
종교에 관하여 / 심보선
1
세기말을 지나 휘황한 봄날이다
귀를 틀어막은 청소부가 실패한 비유들을 쓸어 담고 있는데
꽃가루들은 사방에서 속수무책으로 흩날린다
눈물을 획책하고 있는 저 미세한 말씀들, 지금은
알레르기가 종교를 능가하는 시대라서
파멸과 구원이 참으로 용이해졌다
2
소식이라도 한번 주지 그랬니
난 너무 외로워서 아무 병에라도 전염되었으면 하다가
어제는 느즈막이 강변에 나가 놀다 들어왔다
니가 돌려보낸 편지봉투 속에 편지지처럼
잘게 찢긴 달빛들이 물결 위로 흐르고
밤하늘에 빼곡하게 뜬 별자리들
그 하나하나에 일일이 귀의하고 싶더라
너를 잊기 위해 나 그간 여러번 개종하였다
3
아침에 가출한 탕아가
저녁밥 먹으려고 귀가하고 있다
방랑의 증거로 꽃가루를 온몸에 묻히고
사막에 나가면 눈이 너무 따금거려요, 아버지
얘야, 거긴 사막이 아니라 그냥 공원 놀이터란다
어쨌든 내일 나가면 다시는 돌아오지 않겠어요
필요한 것은 단단한 다짐이 아니라 신용카드 몇 장
4
꽃가루처럼 산산이 부서져 흩날리는 생의 신비여
십자가 위에서 으아, 기지개 피는 낙담한 신성이여
이제 내 몸엔 구석구석마다 가지각색의 영혼들이 깃들어 있다
다들 사소해서 다들 무고하다
On Religion
1.
It’s a splendid spring day, the last century gone.
An earplugged janitor sweeps up the failed metaphors,
as the pollen scatters in every direction, utterly helpless,
such fine words scheming to bring tears. In this era,
when an allergy can trump religion,
ruin and redemption aren’t hard to come by.
2.
You should’ve at least called
I was so lonely, I thought I would rather be ill
with some disease, but yesterday, as it grew late, I went down
to the river to play. The moonlight floated over the current
like the finely torn pages of your letter in that envelope you
sent back, and I wanted to devote myself to each and every
constellation packing the night sky. I underwent many
conversions in those days, so that I might forget you.
3.
The runaway child libertine
is returning home for supper,
covered head to toe in pollen, as proof of his wanderings.
Out in the desert, Father, your eyes sting mercilessly.
That was no desert, child. It was just the park playground.
Tomorrow, when I go, I shall never return.
What you need isn’t resolve but a pocketful of credit cards.
4.
O mystery of life, dashed to little bits
and scattered like pollen,
O disheartened god, stretching yourself
awake on the cross,
souls of every shape and color have nestled into my body,
its every nook and cranny,
and they are all too small for blame.
Shim Bo-sun was born in Seoul and attended Seoul National University and received a Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University. He debuted in Shinchunmunye (신춘문예) with his poem 풍경 in 1994.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:52 am
very fun!!
i finally had time to look at these poems… well, for now only the first one, to be precise. here is what i noticed and wondered about.
- the title: doesn’t 환멸 mean disillusion, and shouldn’t, accordingly, the title mean something like ‘things that disillusion me’?
- i understand the poem as a list of things that make the lyrical i feel disillusioned, that’s why i would add more articles, like “the sun”, “the right side” (see below)
- 불계(不計) 패 [this is what it looks like in the book] – very tricky. as far as i see, this refers to a kind of, apparently very clear, defeat in Baduk. my dictionary says: “바둑에서, 승부가 완연해 집 수를 계산하지 않음. ¶ ∼로 이기다.” would there be an option that mentions Baduk? or anything else that makes it clear it’s talk about a board game? what is the reason for you to say ‘white margin’?
- why “those fickle bastards”? and isn’t bastard too strong? 쟁이, like in 겁쟁이 or 공부쟁이, has no real negative meaning, does it? it’s rather cute i think…
- according to the dic, “회고전들” means retrospective
- why “your” alma mater – i would say “my old school’s front gate”, again, i can only refer to the dictionary and not to any real experiences with the korean language… but 교 can mean any school, right?
- oh yeah, and what about 가나다 순 — in Hangul-order?
- “컨선턴터” – would not have figured that out by myself!
- in general, my personal taste is to stay closer to the form of the original. i would leave all parallelisms as parallelisms, all repetitions as repetitions… like “lemon fragrance” and then “lavender fragrance”, and for all 의-genitives i would probably try to either always use “‘s” or “of” – possibly the former for it doesn’t change the syntax… but i also don’t see any intentional use (except in the first and last three lines) of these constructions, so i might just be me.
what do you think he means by “오른쪽” and “아래쪽”? obviously, together with ‘태양’ and ‘토성’, and lemon fragrance and lavender fragrance they make up a symmetrical frame… could it be translated as ‘right side’ and ‘down side’ (but: pun!) or just as ‘right’ and ‘down’? how can these directions be, in comparison to all the other ‘things’, be disillusioning? as i’m typing this, i’ve been thinking this: maybe 오른쪽 stems from 오르다, because as ‘upwards’ or something like that it would form a nice, very visual (“top” of the poem vs. “bottom” of the poem) contrast to 아래쪽.
what do you think??
June 27th, 2009 at 5:46 am
btw, is a 패 situation. apparently, it’s a never ending situation where black wins a stone that white can win back that black can win back…
July 11th, 2009 at 8:27 am
ㄱ: the title: doesn’t 환멸 mean disillusion, and shouldn’t, accordingly, the title mean something like ‘things that disillusion me’?
ㅈ: Maybe “drawing me towards” IS too clunky? Maybe just “drawing me to”. Even if 환멸로 이끄는 is a common expression, I liked the sense of being *dragged* there.
ㄱ: i understand the poem as a list of things that make the lyrical i feel disillusioned, that’s why i would add more articles, like “the sun”, “the right side” (see below)
ㅈ: Agreed.
ㄱ: 불계(不計) 패 [this is what it looks like in the book] – very tricky. as far as i see, this refers to a kind of, apparently very clear, defeat in Baduk. my dictionary says: “바둑에서, 승부가 완연해 집 수를 계산하지 않음. ¶ ∼로 이기다.” would there be an option that mentions Baduk? or anything else that makes it clear it’s talk about a board game? what is the reason for you to say ‘white margin’?
ㅈ: ‘Wide margin’. That was the dictionary definition. ‘A crushing defeat in *go*.’ Maybe?
ㄱ: why “those fickle bastards”? and isn’t bastard too strong? 쟁이, like in 겁쟁이 or 공부쟁이, has no real negative meaning, does it? it’s rather cute i think…
ㅈ: Well, I think ‘bastards’ can convey a kind of mild frustration akin to 쟁이. I call my friends bastards all the time. Fickle people are annoying, but probably don’t deserve to be cursed at for it, so I think the “cute” nuance you’re referring to is preserve with ‘fickle bastards’ and I also like the way it kind of breaks tone with the rest of the poem leading up to that point.
ㄱ: according to the dic, “회고전들” means retrospective
ㅈ: Yes, indeed. Maybe ‘memoir’ would be better. Or better yet, ‘*those* memoirs’ to mimic the repetition of 회고전*들* coming after 변덕쟁이*들*.
ㄱ: why “your” alma mater – i would say “my old school’s front gate”, again, i can only refer to the dictionary and not to any real experiences with the korean language… but 교 can mean any school, right?
ㅈ: It should be ‘my’ definitely. But I would keep alma mater, because of the tone. 모교 sounds very formal to me.
ㄱ: oh yeah, and what about 가나다 순 — in Hangul-order?
ㅈ: I did consider it, but I thought the line was funny, and the funniness would be lost if the moment was foreignized.
ㄱ: “컨선턴터” – would not have figured that out by myself!
ㅈ: Oh naver.com was very useful. ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
ㄱ: in general, my personal taste is to stay closer to the form of the original. i would leave all parallelisms as parallelisms, all repetitions as repetitions… like “lemon fragrance” and then “lavender fragrance”…
ㅈ: Agreed.
ㄱ: what do you think he means by “오른쪽” and “아래쪽”? obviously, together with ‘태양’ and ‘토성’, and lemon fragrance and lavender fragrance they make up a symmetrical frame… could it be translated as ‘right side’ and ‘down side’ (but: pun!) or just as ‘right’ and ‘down’? how can these directions be, in comparison to all the other ‘things’, be disillusioning? as i’m typing this, i’ve been thinking this: maybe 오른쪽 stems from 오르다, because as ‘upwards’ or something like that it would form a nice, very visual (”top” of the poem vs. “bottom” of the poem) contrast to 아래쪽.
what do you think??
ㅈ: I haven’t a clue.The symmetry is definitely there, but I don’t see any deeper meaning to ‘right’ and ‘bottom’… Perhaps this is something that one should ask the poet. (Good thing he’s alive.)
Thanks for such extensive commenting!
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