Poet's words

Part 1

dry ice
Coming out
You answer yes, instead of rain.
No name
Whose job is it to let light flow through the film?
Underground
Tail of emotions
Who else is here besides you?
minimalist
ranunculus
Something was wrong with the expression on the face of the person holding the flower.
A white tree is a white tree
dimanche
There is a witch
Forest of Seven Veils
Neon Wafers
Bonne nuit
108 Chichi

Part 2

The corners of a twelve-year-old's mouth that he doesn't know
Snake Weather
ghost
I'm putting my body in the brackets and touching my fading toes.
Shadow Relay
Pansy's Island
White sleep
Apples outside
Itchy Sunday
Fish Apartment
Cancan with mom
Still ice cubes
I, Masako, think
Girls in turtlenecks on the hill
Back swimming
Where did the story go wrong when I came back?
Venn diagram
The feeling of cellophane
Palette of the Night

Part 3

Signifier of the Mirror
What time is Siam
Rainbow Print
Close to an ellipse
Water lighting
Sister's sleep
If you pronounce homo, it becomes on.
hologram
To the summer that died young
Next to the glacier
Ping Pong Door
twin
Resulting black
Magnolia
Summer lyricism
A rainbow appeared

commentary
Laughter travels far into the future. Park Sang-soo

“I will be your courage.”
Until I don't have to prove that I am me
A poem that willingly sways alongside you

Kang Hye-bin, winner of the 2016 Munhak-kwa-sahoe New Writer's Award, has published her first poetry collection, "Palette of the Night."
This collection of poems, which began with “the mood and world of a certain era that should be called blue” (Park Sang-su), is a meticulous memoir that records the poet’s entire life, a clear declaration, or countless confessions.


"Palette of the Night" contains the confusion and depression of a person who feels alienated from his own existence due to a different identity.
Kang Hye-bin's poems, which are painful but do not stop at the pain, sad but try to escape from the sadness and ultimately love herself, become a record of a survivor and try to convey the "right to cry" and "love with all your might" to someone who resembles 'me'.
Just as tiny water droplets gather to form large clouds, and faint lights gather to brighten the darkness, I hope that the rainbow-colored sincerity that can be read as a spectrum when you look closely will reach you and give you courage.


A heart-pounding experience where you realize that in this world, there are not only 'I' but also many 'us' like me, and within that, you can feel a sense of belonging and connection.
I believe Kang Hye-bin's first poetry collection will bring many people together, connecting them and sharing courage.
I would like to express my gratitude for the fact that a human being, struggling between sadness and depression, between denial and acceptance of his own identity, recorded and expressed his eventful history from death to love through poetry, and maintained his "blue blood" until the very end.
This 'blue blood' was a sign of another identity, a name for sadness, but now it is a unique symbol of an artist who writes poetry and still lives here.
Park Sang-su (poet, literary critic)

Blue World
―“You know, what is normal?”

I always kept an honest diary, but it was always taken away.

The teacher held a red pen and the unknown friends passed around the diary to read it.

I wrote the poem with that feeling.
―From the acceptance speech for the 2016 Literature and Society New Writer’s Award

How can it be easy for me to be me?
―From “A Rainbow Appeared”

The most prominent color in the colorful poetry collection, “Palette of the Night,” is “blue,” a symbol of identity and seems to signify the melancholy that coexists with the speaker.
In his childhood, the narrator, who was confronted with his own identity that was different from others, writes of himself as a rabbit whose “eyes turned blue” and who “kept a secret” while crying inside.
I pretend to be just another red-eyed rabbit, a normal person with red blood flowing through their veins, but I know better than anyone that I have 'blue blood' flowing through me.
People often pointed “red pens” at me and easily threw small insults at me (“Would you mind telling me your blood type before you use my cup?”, “Coming Out”).
“My deformity stemmed from the fact that I was me” (“Shadow Relay”), so I “breathed in a very shallow way” (“What Hour of Shams”) to avoid revealing myself.
Since no one told me how to “keep” my “damp secret” like “a mushy tomato past its due date” (“Coming Out”), I had no choice but to “long-time/immerse myself in my torn heart” (“Minimalist”).
Only when I was “on the verge of falling from the roof” (“The Poet’s Words”), unable to hide or reveal anything, did I finally realize “I want to be myself” (“What Time is Shampoo”).
Through the process of transition from killing oneself to loving oneself, which is meticulously unfolded over parts 1 and 2, “a colorful secret from the closet” (“Coming Out”) finally comes out.
And the poet begins another fight, armed with the colors and moisture that he wanted to hide and that make him who he is.


Children's fight
―“Sister, this city hides an ugly face.”

Things that are hardening to become healthy are boring.
―From “Swimming on Back”

Accepting that you are different and embracing this difference as a continuous life, not a momentary state.
The opponent in this fight to prove the (very obvious) fact that I am a nation is the mainstream-majority, called “the mass” in Kang Hye-bin’s poem.
Beings who “don’t put away their cheap words”, “just copy each other”, and “just point fingers at each other” (“There’s Something Wrong with the Expression of the Person Holding Flowers”), and shoot “malicious evil” (“A White Tree is a White Tree”).
Those who are already so rigid that they do not want to listen to others.
The expressionless face of an adult who easily falls into the trap of being ‘everyone’ and ‘everyone’ by saying, “Everyone was once a child/It was all in the past” (“Venn Diagram”).
The reason why the speaker of Kang Hye-bin's poetry often gives the impression of being childlike is probably because the poet is wary of becoming this 'lump' and resists it.
To stand up to the mainstream, you need allies.
“We” (Park Sang-soo) say, “We look the same but are different, and although we are different, we create beauty as one rainbow.”
Children are strong because they are innocent.
Because it is flexible, it can be mixed and become 'us'.
The expressions “squishy” and “damp,” which are often used negatively, are reinterpreted in Kang Hye-bin’s poetry as a possibility of mixing.
The 'damp secret' of the 'tomato with a squishy expression' thus gains new meaning.


We don't overlap at all.
Have you noticed the rainbow's hidden secret? Moist water droplets escape through the cracks in the door. You never know when or where you might discover a different colored cry.
―From “I’m putting my body in parentheses and touching my fading toes”

The Future of Love
―“In the dazzling summer, only a quiet love persisted.”

Look carefully // That's how we love
―From “What Time in Sharm”

Let's take one more step.
“In order to go from a place where the outstretched finger to greet becomes an insult // to a place where people like me gather in a circle” (“Signified in the Mirror”).
Just as the light hidden in the white light of sunlight takes on its own color when water droplets touch each other, even though they look the same, Kang Hye-bin adds expression to the faces that resemble 'me' by pointing out the differences and giving them individuality.
Park Sang-su, who was in charge of the commentary for this collection of poems, calls it “mixing while distinguishing.”
This way of distinguishing between seemingly similar things or mixing together completely opposite things may be a form of resistance that began with the mainstream's "will to repurpose the negative definitions imposed on them."
The poet speaks of life, death, and love with longing and earnestness, fighting for 'us'.

Part 3 reveals where the end of that long fight is coming to an end.
“One person wants to sleep next to another person/That’s all.”
There is no need to ask permission for love (“We/love, even if we love,/is it okay if we love,/is it okay if we love?”, “Rainbow Print”) and “when I don’t have to prove myself” (“Minimalist”), Kang Hye-bin asks, “Questioning the obvious.
Thinking about people.
I will not stop looking around” (acceptance speech).


Poet's words

Just before falling from the roof
I was born again

When you want to cry, cry
Let's love with all our might

I will be your courage

Spring 2020
Kang Hye-bin

Back cover text

A color I can't pass up
A promise that begins to rot once it comes out of your mouth
A branch that broke while writing a name in the sand
A prayer you can pray without putting your hands together
A kiss that rises like a fountain in the middle of the square
A traffic light that doesn't even laugh at birds' jokes
The sunlight that I stepped on while taking a step back
A cough that is not dry enough to be painted
A clock that stops every time we make eye contact
Pumpkin porridge slowly stirred until the sun rises
The 13th month birthday that someone is waiting for