Description

Translated bySuhyun J. Ahn & Archana Madhavan (Seagull Books, paperback)

Publication Date:June 10, 2022

Publisher Marketing:A ground-breaking new collection of queer poetry from a leading contemporary Korean poet.

Kim HyunsGlory Holeis the first Korean queer poetry collection. Featuring gay teens, elders, cats, caterpillars, robots, and other unexpected characters, Kims fifty-one eccentric poems trace themes of love, sexual desire, abandonment, destitution, and death. In recounting the splendid yet tragic journeys of his speakers, Kim defies meaningful sense-making. His poems are a mishmash of dystopian sci-fi and pornography, storytelling and poetry, fictive references, and real figures. They are not embellished with elegant imagery; in fact, they are antithetical to it, opting instead for incoherent tense, unidiomatic expressions, and never-ending puns. After all, like LGBTQ+ people in many cultures, Korean queers live in this site of violence. Bewilderment, deliberately, is Kim Hyuns form.Glory Holeinvites readers into a very queer world.