Poem Magazine's first collection of essays, eagerly awaited by its 80,000 followers.
The dazzling and special scenes of poetry we loved

In an era when poetry feels unfamiliar and difficult, the first collection of essays by Poem Magazine CEO Bae Dong-hoon, who has diligently promoted poetry, has been published.
This book teaches us how to look at poetry as it is, willingly embrace the emotions and scenes that come to mind, and cherish the desire to remember them for a long time.
Love and breakups, a friend's wedding, a day left alone, simple yet complex emotions and everyday moments come to me like the lingering afterglow of a poem.
From works by long-loved poets like Choi Seung-ja, Lee Byeong-ryul, and Park Jun to works by young poets leading our time, such as Go Seon-gyeong, Hwang In-chan, and Kim Yeon-deok, the book showcases the appeal of poetry that transcends generations.
This book, which unhesitatingly expresses a keen sense of not missing a moment and a love for poetry, is a record of a heart that lives with poetry by its side.
This book doesn't tell you how to read poetry.
Instead, the book contains 47 poems personally selected by Poem Magazine, along with the emotions felt while reading the collection, sentences that repeatedly came to mind, and profound stories of facing oneself, written in short but heartfelt language.
“When I read poetry, I felt like there were two people crying, not just one.” This book conveys the deepest language of love and sorrow that poetry can offer to those who remember such feelings, or to those who have yet to experience such moments.

Poetry didn't ask any of my heart.
Rather, it gave me an extra heart.
When I returned home and read poetry after being consumed by the world and my mind was completely consumed, strangely, a new feeling arose.
Even though I emptied and emptied my heart, love continued to fill it.
Ten years later, the poem still resonates with me.
Every word and touch that the poem conveys touches me and spreads around me.
But I'm grateful that I still have this much heart left.
--- p.5 From the “Opening Remarks”

“I was so impressed by the words, ‘The poem is just good.’
You don't need a reason to love something.
“I’m learning thanks to you too.” After parting ways with the CEO and on the bus to my next destination, I thought about the countless times I’d been in the car, but I realized there was no better answer than ‘just a good heart.’
When I consider how many things in the world I can love without judging the amount, I realize how grateful I am for poetry, which always welcomes me from a fixed place.
--- p.26 From "It's Just Great"

It's been a long time since I wrote a letter.
A letter that starts with “hello” and ends with “thank you.”
There is much love in the crown and toes of the letter.
Words that are there as if they were there originally, even though no one decided on them.
I sharpen my heart sharper than a pencil and convey myself to you, one letter at a time.
Letters that will stay in your heart for a long time even if you lose them often.
--- p.39 From “A letter is completed by forgetting”

Now that you've gone from thinking poetry was everything to realizing that poetry is just a part of life, what kind of life do you envision for yourself?
Making dinner with my wife, watching the falling snow, grabbing a cold beer from the fridge, and suddenly feeling grateful that there's no more snow to shovel, but then the fleeting memories of those snowflakes make me write poetry.
Does your brother still have the power to make poetry possible?
--- p.57 From “To Brother Kyungmin”

Clearly, my life has had more happy days than sad days, but to write poetry, I had to bring out my painful memories and spit out my deepest phlegm.
I had to take out the buried sadness, wash it, feed it, dress it up, and prepare it to be sent out.
Writing poetry was like remembering the location of a time capsule that others had buried in the ground and forgotten, and then going there on a sunny summer day and digging it up with my hands in the rough ground.
--- p.78 From “I didn’t want to write poetry, but it became poetry”

Reading poetry is something I can't trade for anything in the world, but at least it could change my life, which was spent in a haggard state in a corner of the Shinbundang Line, wishing for the extinction of humanity.
The 40 minutes or so I spent reading poetry on the subway always transported me to a new world, and allowed me to see a future that was obscured by the hazy fog at work.
Things like dreams, passions, and ideals.
I was able to see myself clearly through poetry.
I was dreaming this, I wanted to do this, This is the expression you make when you're truly happy, This is what you want to say to the other person when you're in love...
--- p.89 From “Don’t Follow Good Adults”

There are things in this world that don't need to end.
There were things that required the kind of persistence that made you want to keep doing them, forever, without waiting for the end.
To me, it was poetry.
Poetry was something I could love without any compensation, and I hoped this unrequited love would never end.
I hoped that even as time passed, I could still smile with a transparent and happy smile like a child when I read poetry.
--- p.139 From “Leisure and Perseverance”

“I have too much love.” He looked very elegant and lonely as he recited his excessive love in a calm voice.
He said that liking too many things was his weakness.
When I graphed the shape of love within a hexagon, I thought that if other people's love was shaped like a sharp triangle, Jin's love would be a very small, solid hexagon.
The words, "I'm worried about loving too much while stepping foot in the door," sounded incredibly lonely.
--- p.143 From "I Have Too Much Love"

I've been wondering what sentence would be the best after hello.
The word "hello" doesn't change its form when we're happy or sad, but the atmosphere surrounding it and the pitch of the voice that's saying it are clearly different.
How can I hide in words the feeling of being round and seemingly ready to roll away if left alone?
No, do I really need to hide it? Should I just say "hello" brightly and leave the rest to fate?
Who will be happy and who will be sad when you say hello?
I hope you are well, but will I be well?
--- p.197 From "Between Goodbye and Goodbye"

In the darkness, there was no darkness to be found.
Occasionally, a faint light from a distant village illuminates the field of vision, then darkness falls again.
Just darkness.
Darkness again.
The word darkness cannot be doubted because it really looks like darkness.
It seems like something will start with 'uh', but he closes his mouth tightly with 'doom', blocking all light leakage.
On the other hand, light really looks like light.
As soon as he spoke, his mouth opened wide, and a wisp of light spread like a lamp on his desk, illuminating the area below.
I think that the darkness that exists even after the darkness is the act of closing a mouth that was closed again.

--- p.204 From “The train pierces the darkness, and then back into darkness”