Poet's words

Part 1 Safety First
Vitreous body/ A world that people like to leave/ Flute/ New Year's greetings/ Year-end screening/ The art of love/ Wednesday/ Parallel poems/ Opening poem/ Friends will not be hurt/ Garden/ Pi-ing/ Little human in a flask/ Same/ User interface/ Middle school student/ Unmistakable middle school student/ Middle school student's star/ Smile/ Holiday/ Fortune of light/ Loves

Part 2: Real Night?
Yeongang - Land / Lost Poem / Gift / Time / When I folded my fingers, they disappeared / Year / Nuances of Love / Small Fork Bottle / Letter Painting / Props with Umbrellas / Fortress / Good and Good / Life of Soda Water / New Life of Lemon Ginger / Human Action / Sister's Night / Bluffing / Anista and Anista's Light / If You Don't Love, It Becomes Love / Mi / Yeongang - River

Part 3 Small light turned on and did not go out
Poem of Flash / Fine / Sky / Bat and You / Mookji / Shozainteshktol / Country / Water Room / Truman Show Syndrome / Lesson / Nature / Cutting Board of the Year / Yeongiyeong / Poem of Silhouette / Mitch / Catch! / Our Master / Pompo Pompo Pompo Pompo, 1911 / Mozakis / Tira and Orb, and the Beautiful World of Tira and Orb / Goodwill

There are many ways to read the first poetry collection by poet Jang Su-yang, who came to us with a unique aesthetic.
As poet Park Sang-sun said in the quote above, you could read the poems by sensing the 'touch of the void, the temperature of the void' and following what the poet captured there, or you could read the poems in succession first, taking as a clue the similarity or connection in the titles, such as "Middle School Student," "A Middle School Student Without a doubt," "Middle School Student's Star," or "Parallel Poems," "Opening Poem," "Farewell Poem," and "Poem of Flash" and "Poem of Silhouette," "Life of Soda Water," and "New Life of Lemon Ginger."
Poems of varying length and rhythm are read rhythmically.
A major characteristic is that there are many poems (e.g., “It’s the Same,” “Anista and Anistar Light,” “Props with an Umbrella,” “Our Master”) that make you feel like you’re eavesdropping on a secret conversation between two or three people or watching a play performed by characters whose identities cannot be determined.
It is rare to find a poetry collection that contains so many different and vivid pleasures.

Life is filled with too many absences, and people try to fill those empty spaces with ridicule. Because capitalism never stops criticizing us for leaving our lacks as they are. Responding to the enormous blame that is overwhelming us with ridicule is part of the temporary coping mechanisms that we have known from the beginning, the ones that don't require much effort and can prevent us from becoming miserable. By the way, Lemon Ginger, how nice it would be if you lived the two hundred and fifty or so Fridays that were given to me. The connecting sounds from Friday to Friday would be white and blue and clear like you.
_From "The Life of Soda Water"

-The devil who doesn't even beg in front of you
-Mine
-you
-Not mine
-love
-Whatever it is, it is absolutely not yours.
-What's left?
-congratulations
-you are
-It's only yours!
_From "The Bat and You"

Couldn't it be possible to read it while holding the keywords 'night' and 'love' in both hands?
Jang Su-yang's poems contain the sense of the extraordinary, the unfamiliarity of space and time, and the images that seem to arise from that moment, as you wake up from a deep, confused dream and wonder, "Is it really night?"

In the introduction to the poem “The Vitreous Body,” which is a prologue, the speaker describes a “man in a large coat” standing on the road, and perhaps on a night when the coat looks “like wings,” saying, “I hope he is not in danger,” and “I let him believe he flew once, as a favor/ So that he can roll around without getting hurt.”
Stories of the night when we feel that “our strange sin is not/ and what is invisible/ is kinder than what is not seen.”
This also takes place in the darkness of the theater, obscuring any sense of time.
It is from the poem “Year-End Screening” which begins with the title line, “When I hold your hand, the snow melts/ That’s how it is in the theater.”
“After everyone leaves/ There is darkness/ In the space that is in disarray”.
There we end up “remembering whose fingertips we touched.”

You said that the darker it is, the clearer it becomes, but I always felt awkward in dark spaces.
I forgot to breathe, and later I thought I could hear someone else's breathing in my ear.
Then I could see your face floating white in the darkness.
Is this what people call cinema?
_In "Year-end Screening"

Moreover, it is not difficult to sense the spirit of ‘love’ in Jang Su-yang’s poetry, from the ‘Poet’s Note’ to the title of the poem and every corner of the poem.


I hate to carelessly say things like I'm hungry or I'm cold.
Words like I love you and I like you
I can't get used to it even if I die
We know too
I can't love every day
_From "Sister's Night"

Love is mentioned and thought of as something that cannot be done every day, something that is stopped and waiting, something that must be kept quiet no matter how noisy the world is, something that has not blossomed and is sad, something like a huge crossing that has formed between 'friend' and 'you'.


It flew for a while and then sat down for a long time.
Love gathers around like people.
I feed and put my loves to sleep before they fall asleep.
In my sleep, I try not to fall asleep.
Loves leave me.
Covering his face with a black cloth, he flies into the white sky and disappears.
A man who has been sleeping for a long time because of love is left abandoned in the garden.
_From "Yeon-gang - Land"

This first poetry collection, filled solely with the language of poetry without any commentary, clearly reveals the poet's position and attitude toward creation.
When we hold hands, our eyes melt, and what fills that space will be different for each reader.
It is worth enjoying the story of a being who is “a great loneliness filled with loved ones” (‘Poet’s Words’) who has traveled far and looked very closely, who has done everything he could, who has unfolded the night with the power of intimacy and fantasy, and whose deep and expansive journey is filled with love.



*A brief interview with poet Jang Su-yang shares his thoughts on the publication of his first poetry collection.

Q.
I'm curious about your thoughts on publishing your first poetry collection.
There is just as much shame as happiness.
If I weren't a writer, would I have been able to pour out all the words that were inside me in front of anyone like this?
I'm the kind of person who wants to express my thoughts and feelings even in front of people I don't know.
I knew it before, but now that the book has been published, it seems like they're officially acknowledging it, so I feel even more embarrassed.


Q.
What makes poetry special?
As long as we live, everyone has something they want to hear, and because we are all different, it is difficult to find the right words.
Sometimes I feel miserable when I can't find the words.
I think poetry serves as a map for people to wander through when they are searching for words they have not yet heard.
Poetry is at the cutting edge of language, so if you can't find it anywhere else, you're likely to find it in poetry.


Q.
Is there anything you considered particularly important while compiling your first poetry collection?
I hope that no serious doubts will arise from this collection of poems that would interfere with their appreciation.
Because there is nothing in my poem that is so secretive that it requires effort to interpret it.
I also wanted to arrange the order of the poems in a way that wouldn't be boring.
If there is a violent poem, I try to make sure that a calm poem follows it as much as possible.
Overall, I tried to make it easy to read and approachable.


Q.
I'm curious about which poem in this collection you particularly cherish and why.
There are about ten poems that come to mind.
One of the pieces I would like to introduce is “The Art of Love.”
This poem was written while I was contemplating how I should continue writing poetry and what I should write. It is also a poem that made me realize that just because it is my poetry, it is not just my story.
Writing these poems has allowed me to love, miss, and keep others close to me through poetry.

Q.
It's striking that there are many poems in the form of 'conversations' in your poetry collection. Is there a reason why you often use this form?
A poem in the form of a dialogue is one of the references for completing a single thought into a poem.
When a poem cannot progress with one word, another is called.
I myself think it's a shortcut.
Sometimes I just couldn't get the words I wanted to say out loud on my own.
It required the assumption or illusion that we were talking about something together.


Q.
How would you like to introduce your poetry collection to readers?
This poetry collection is precious to me, not to you, the readers.
That's a given.
So I hope that when you take the time to read these poems, you will find some joy, some inspiration.
That's the only truth.
One more thing to say *there's love in it*



A big lonely place full of loved ones

March 2021
Jang Su-yang

- From "The Poet's Words"