Lee, Jae-Hoon (Prepared Angela Kosta)
Moderator 
POEM BY LEE, JAE-HOO
Poet Lee, Jae-Hoon was born in Yeongwol-gun, Gangwon-do, South Korea. He started his career by publishing works in the monthly magazine Modern Poetry in 1998. His poetry collections include “A Report on the Tribe where My First Word Lives”, “Plutoed”, “Bug Myth”, “Biological Tears”, and “Rock Is Thunder”. His books include “Contemporary Poetry and Nihilism”, “The Poetics of Dilemma”, “The Rhetoric of Absence”, “Signs and Surplus”, “Fantasy and Topophilia”, and a collection of dialogues titled “I am a Poet”. He is the recipient of the Young Poet Award from the Korean Poets’ Association, the Contemporary Poetry Prize, the Korean Lyric Poetry Prize, and the Kim Manjung Literary Prize. Currently, he is an editor at the ‘SISASA(People Who Love Poetry)’ magazine and the ‘Blue Paper’ magazine, and a professor at Konyang University.
THE POET IN A JACKET
I write poetry in a jacket.
Poetry, void of a mother’s presence.
Artists sprout wings under their arms,
adorn horns upon their heads,
and don the attire of clowns.
With heavy steps, they stride into the streets,
exposing the flesh of plucked birds
for public display.
The crowd cheers, art remains solemn.
I write poetry in a jacket.
With solitary arrogance, I craft hollow verses.
The skilled poet climbs tall trees,
drawing the shapes of leaves,
singing of the sorrow in withered branches.
I write poetry in a jacket,
about the horn of a captured unicorn,
the beloved sound of galloping hooves,
and the grief of stars defiled by civilization’s experiments.
Whispering, my jacket pens the words—
Yet, this coat is made of my mother’s flesh.
Jacket, oh jacket! At its mention,
my mother’s brain and heart unravel into threads,
spooling endlessly.
Wearing this jacket to fend off the cold,
I find myself unable to write of her.
If I entered the slumbering forest,
lit a candle and burned this jacket,
perhaps the world’s most beautiful poem
would be born.
If the jacket’s ashes scattered upon the trees
to form a lush forest,
perhaps wings would sprout beneath my bony arms.
I write poetry in a jacket.
So cold, I clutch this jacket tightly
and whisper jacket, jacket
to the sleeping princess in the woods.
재킷을 입은 시인
재킷을 입고 시를 쓴다.
어머니가 없는 공허한 시를 쓴다.
예술가들은 겨드랑이에 날개를 달고
머리에 뿔을 단다. 광대의 옷을 입는다.
거친 발걸음으로 거리에 나가 거죽을 벗긴
날짐승을 전시한다.
대중은 환호하고, 예술은 진지하다.
재킷을 입고 시를 쓴다.
고독한 오만으로 공허한 시를 쓴다.
재주 좋은 시인은
높은 나무에 올라 나뭇잎의 형상을 그린다.
시든 나뭇가지의 슬픔을 노래한다.
재킷을 입고 시를 쓴다.
사로잡힌 유니콘의 뿔에 대해.
사랑하는 말발굽 소리에 대해.
문명인의 실험에 훼손당한 별의 슬픔에 대해.
스삭스삭 재킷의 말로 쓴다.
실상 외투는 어머니의 살로 만들어진 것.
재킷, 재킷! 하면 어머니의 뇌와 심장이 실이 되어
올올이 풀려나온다.
재킷을 입고 추위를 견딘 나는
어머니에 대해 쓸 수 없다.
잠자는 숲에 들어가 촛불을 켜고
재킷을 태우면 세상에서 가장 아름다운
한 편의 시가 태어날텐데.
재킷의 재가 나무에 뿌려져
울창한 숲이 되면,
앙상한 내 겨드랑이에 날개가 생길텐데.
재킷을 입고 시를 쓴다.
너무 추워 재킷을 꼭 껴입고
잠자는 숲속의 공주에게 재킷, 재킷 말을 건다.
Prepared Angela Kosta Executive Director of MIRIADE Magazine, Academic, journalist, writer, poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, translator, promoter
