“Don’t give in to the night overflowing with all kinds of precautions.”

Passing through the deep and thickly painted night scenery and thoughts,
A time that goes towards the end while continuing with an endless ending

Poet Kim So-yeon's sixth poetry collection, "The Promoting Night," was published as the 589th book in the Munhak-kwa-Jiseongsa poet selection.
This is a poetry collection published five years after his previous work, “To I,” and it is even more special as it comes on the 30th anniversary of the poet’s debut, having begun his career with works such as “We Praise” in “Modern Poetry Thought” in 1993.


Readers who enjoy poet Kim So-yeon's poetry might be delighted by the news of the publication of a new poetry collection, but then suddenly have this thought:
'I've been waiting this long for poet Kim So-yeon's poetry collection.' It's not just because of the slow pace at which she has published six poetry collections over the past 30 years.
His poetry is not just good to read, but it is poetry that you have to seek out and read, because through his poetry you enter a special place.
For example, a place where the inner self, which has reached its peak, can lean on (『To the Peak』), a place where the shadows that linger behind the light of day meet (『The Wearying Lights Pull the Night Into Them』), a place of martyrdom for those who understand human tears (『The Bones Called Tears』), a place where a lullaby that stops mourning can be heard (『The Mathematician's Morning』 'The Poet's Words').
Therefore, anyone who has faced the extreme inner self and the mystery of existence that has become infinitely small and has fallen into tears and mourning, and anyone who understands the heart of such a person, cannot help but await the new space created by poet Kim So-yeon's poetry.

That is why, in the midst of my 30th year of vision, I am going back to a sentence from the ‘Poet’s Prose’ of my first poetry collection, ‘Reaching the Extreme’, published in 1996.


I wrote poetry to turn the wounds I received in this era, the places where those wounds reside, into ‘traces.’

Her first poetry collection, “Poet’s Prose,” concludes with the sentence, “Today, too, is a clear day with an end in sight.” If you trace the traces of wounds revealed in Kim So-yeon’s poetry, you may find yourself seeing an end somewhere along the way.
But here and now, it is still “the night that promotes.”

Your body is boiling with fever
As I learned from you
Wiping it with a wet towel
Stay up all night

I sometimes overtake time
Too slow has the ability to sometimes outsmart the fast.

Like a floor
Lying flat
I stare at the memories that are scurrying around like cockroaches.
How do I kill that thing?

Bringing memories from the future in advance
It's also more loose
A contemptuous mind becomes especially capable when it is hungry.

A thin layer of moisture applied to the skin
That it takes away body heat
How did you know

You did that for me when I had a fever
With that in mind
Stay up all night

Your emaciated body
I think I can melt it away
You will finally melt
It will evaporate, it will disappear
As I longed for
As I longed for

When you open the window
The wind was blowing wildly and pushing the curtains away.
Flipping through the open book
Raindrops pour down in an instant
There's an empty bucket somewhere in the backyard.
Rolling around so beautifully

The next day appears calmly
It was incredibly quiet
Sunlight falls on the corners of all still objects
It's like we're reborn

Yesterday and today
When there is a lot of space between
The shadow that hovered around me without being able to take hold of my dreams
When I look down at the morning with pity

You can be escorted from time
There is something that is possible with just the flow of time.
That's really good

Our
Weakness, dullness, and tirelessness
Slow time repeating the same mistakes
This vast sunlight is silent and endless
Encourage
---From "The Facilitating Night"

The night that hides me, the night that hides more of me, more deeply, I want to shout, with both hands cupped in a circle and brought to my lips, that there is someone here to listen. The night when sticky promises, like fruit juice, flow from my lips. The night when everything melts. I nod to the reasonable statement that the past someone is pointing to is the future. Then I realize that the future someone is trying to point to is the past. Then I prove that the future is no longer unknown. The night when I walk. To the unknown, to the point of no return, to the unimaginable. The night when I turn on the app, figure out my current location, wipe the sweat off my face with a handkerchief, stand in the middle of a four-lane road for a long time, stand in front of a cat's corpse for a long time, walk into the middle of a crowd of flies. The night when I am captivated, I shake off the dead bugs from the fluorescent light case. Summer is disgusting, isn't it? Noisy? And the night is worse? Not to mention the outside, right? Are these the things you find beautiful? Do you like them? Did you do well? Are you proud? The word "good person" makes a good person, and it's the same night when you become a good person. The night when you don't want to be someone worthy of a trustworthy impression. The night when you become the only one who doesn't want to be. The night when you reject something that seems like a better person. Saying "we" and meaning "me" is one of those insults that have been painstakingly crafted.


A night of idealism, smiling as I write down a sentence I read in the evening. The word idealism is absurd. A night of snickers. The word idealism is such a good word. It's really good to say that something doesn't exist, like snow falling again on snow with footprints. A night where everything seems like it will disappear into the black if I press the all-out lights button. A night that is pushed to the edge. A night that is accelerating. A strange and cunning night, as if precious things are standing on the edge of a cliff. A night that fully pretends to be velvety soft. A night that is terribly noisy, without a single moment of silence. A night that becomes lush. A night that overflows. Lying with my eyes wide open so that dreams can't even come near. Enduring while sinking like blue ice. Enduring well with all my passion. Firmly believing in the protection of darkness. Not yielding to the night overflowing with all kinds of precautions.
---From "Blue Ice"

When I forgot, i came to find me
Hiding in the mailbox, when I try to get the mail out
He used to crawl out holding my hand tightly

This time it was different
I left a note on the front door.
I'll wait on the rooftop―i
I tilted my head wondering what was going on after being absent for so long.
I climbed the stairs with ease.
I turned the handle on the rooftop iron door.

happy birthday
i is a papyrus
He handed me the bowl.

I know it's not your birthday,
I can't come to your birthday
Be born on the day I come

I smiled broadly, showing my teeth.
I was handed the accompaniment by i

Don't write poetry about me this time
I crossed my arms and winked.

So what should I write poetry about?
About the roof? About the papyrus?
About your birthday?
About the arm wrestling?

After you disappear
A large building was built
Even though the sales inquiry placards are fluttering in every window,
No one moves in
In the empty building hallway
Put your hand in the empty mailbox
It smells like cement
I hear the sound of my slippers being pulled off
No one lives there yet
I hope someone lives

Every time I write a poem about i
I listened to music and took my medicine.
i came today
I could have been born

I took out the blanket and pillow for i
I told you to go to sleep

I'm going to sleep at the mailbox
He asked me to sleep there with him.
I replied that I would do so.

I'm already asleep
I went to write a poem without i secretly
---From the "Preface"

Too many words are pushed into the night

Words that shouldn't be said and words that are said indiscriminately walk into the night.

Thoughts that I had only just begun to fathom are arriving at me at night, just like yesterday and the day before.

If I had thought about it a little more, if I had had the time, it wouldn't have happened this way.

This familiar regret of not having done anything is also sitting somewhere, waiting for the night, seeing off the day.

Night gathers from all sides and settles down cozy.

There are people who come out and smoke and loiter, people who lie down under the blanket but just toss and turn, people who have the TV on but are just sitting there staring at it without even noticing that the home shopping commercial is repeating, people who try to talk to them but just sit next to them, people who sit on the floor slowly folding laundry, people who run three or four laps around the park with earphones in their ears, and people who sit on a bench and hold a dead cell phone with both hands.

So many inner thoughts come crashing down like dark clouds in the middle of the night.

The words they wish they had said and the words they vowed to say are wandering the alleys of the night in a jumble.

The night is like a net that catches no one's words again

He walks over to the other side with a smooth back as if he knows nothing.

People start to turn off their words like turning off a light and fall asleep one by one.

On the shoulders of a person who decided to sit at a desk and write whatever came to mind and not erase it.

So many words are gathering and gathering

Words fall silently from my shoulders

As soon as it settles on the paper, it melts away like a snowflake.

---From "A Narrow Night"