Part 1: Apple Blossoms/The Benefits of Snakeberries/Ventilation/The Never-ending Feast/A Poem for Me/Commemorating the Anniversary of My Old Lover/The Obituary of Elunui Chandran/Critical Blue, Jazz School/Somehow Parting/A Painful Ideology/It Will Exist/A Dangerous Day/Theory of Teeth/Poets/A Dictionary of One Word/Doing Your Best

Part 2 Self-composition/Kim Jum-seon's smiling horse print/Seven evenings/After Pluto/Various reasons for happiness/Celebration poem/The person who is sick now/Daeheungsa Temple in winter rain/Suddenly,/Yeop-sin/Inwol Tea House/Spring day/Famous days/The problem of communication/How did I,/Love is not over yet/Now that we love/( )/Old maid

Part 3: Poppy at Dume / 1991, commonplace, all too commonplace / Woman, Dog, Rain, and Me / Humanistic Anguish / November / A Life That Suddenly Feels a Little Unjust / Interpretation of the Cat with a Severed Leg / Ttottowa Snack Bar / The Last Day / Leather Tree / Autumn Has Come / Fish Farm / The Road to Becoming a Doctor / Byeoksongsa Temple / Disillusionment / Returning Home

Part 4 Days/Drinking/Spider/Winter has come/Record of a certain strong way of being/Vacation sickness/Full-option ding-dong-daeng studio apartment/Show window hand-made jajangmyeon restaurant/Open door/Good morning/Thinking of soybean powder/Old lover/Inside and outside/Muwisa Temple/Beyond the years/Muscles of loneliness/Bad times/Dongryang Station/Precarious interior/Spring snow/Winter tree

Love, ultimately separation, and ultimately inevitable loneliness
A lonely insight that holds laughter within the depths of pain

Poet Ryu Geun's second poetry collection was published by Munhak-kwa-Jiseongsa.
He debuted in 1992 through the Munhwa Ilbo New Year's Literary Contest, but did not publish a single poem for 18 years. In 2010, he published his first poetry collection, "Wounded Constitution," which was a collection of previously unknown poems. He expanded the pain stemming from personal memories into a sorrow that anyone could have experienced, revealing a life that cannot be helped but live with wounds.

Literary critic Hong Jeong-seon, who was in charge of the commentary on Ryu Geun's second poetry collection, "Parting Somehow," speculates that the "secret of the years in which Ryu Geun seemed to have run away from poetry" over the 18 years since his debut may be hidden in the 72 poems in this collection.
The poet is looking back on the wounds that have accumulated over the past six years since the publication of his first poetry collection, touching them with sincere language, and at the same time, he is repeatedly trying to resolve to 'somehow part ways' with those unhealable wounds.


Yesterday I parted with many things. I made up my mind to part with them. I made up my mind to part with them. I gritted my teeth and parted with them. [… …] Yesterday I parted with yesterday, and today I parted with yesterday again. Without any wounds, I faced today and today’s promises, but again without any wounds, I decided to part with them.
-The "Somehow Breakup" part

Ryu Geun is not interested in vague and grandiose explorations of the self and the world, or in idealistic and academic explorations.
Problems that transcend our daily lives, problems that are too serious and lofty and weigh us down, are not Ryu Geun's concern.
Ryu Geun's interests are everyday events and thoughts related to love, memories, drinking, family, and the body that are familiar to all of us.
Ryu Geun tells us such things with a tone that brings a smile to our lips, and with a candor that makes us feel like a stranger.
So, Ryu Geun's poetry doesn't feel like a private property with barbed wire refusing our access, but rather like an open park welcoming our walk. _Hong Jeong-seon (literary critic)

We were unfortunate to meet.
“It’s a good thing to be forgotten” (“After Pluto”).
Thanks to the precious ability of forgetting, memories usually fade away over time, leaving only traces.
But there are some memories that don't fade no matter how much time passes.
Memories that are never erased and cannot be made beautiful even with rationalization become unhealable wounds that will inevitably linger for a long time.
A memory that likely exists deep in everyone's heart, Ryu Geun's new poetry collection is particularly rich in poems that recall such scar-like memories.


The speaker was a son who could not watch over his father's death ("Vacation Sickness") and who "had no choice but to abandon" his mother, who "had only one dictionary" and "had only my name in it" ("Dictionary of One Word").
There was a time when I lived “hanging on to my lover’s house while trying my best.”
“Living without a life,” but the desire was extremely persistent.
Disillusioned with himself, he often drank alcohol, thinking, “A movie that doesn’t sell/has been screened too many times” (“Cinematic Days”).
“I wanted to get drunk for nothing, get drunk every day” and “despair with a comfortable mind” (“1991, Common, All Too Common”).


Even at such times, I never stopped loving.
So, more than anything, there are many poems about loves that have passed away. In an early poem widely sung as a song by the late Kim Kwang-seok, the speaker of Ryu Geun's poem, who confessed that "a love that hurts too much wasn't love," can now readily greet lovers and lovers who have left scars for a long time, saying, "I'm happy to be able to leave words of farewell," and "I'm happy to be able to be completely unhappy" after meeting you.
This will be a greeting not only to some people, but also to my memories and wounds.
“I was a coward to my family, and I was a coward because of my family.
I was a coward to my lover, and I was a coward because of my lover.
“I was cowardly because of poetry and cowardly to poetry” (Hong Jeong-seon).
Saying goodbye to all cowardice, will the speaker be able to endure the 'loneliness' that is more bitter than any wound he has ever experienced?
“I can’t run away from you even a single step/The days and nights that come and go without doing anything are painful” (“Muscles of Solitude”).


Creating rich reflections in friendly language
The fact that his poetry doesn't feel burdensome even while talking about such extreme loneliness and deep wounds is probably thanks to Ryu Geun's qualities.
The common beauty (通俗美) in the sense of “a kind of methodical love that seeps into the other and a new world in the most serious and lightest way” (Choi Hyun-sik) shown in his first poetry collection is also valid in this poetry collection. While talking about the wounds of infinitely heavy memories and the beings around him that bring about sorrowful emotions, he does not become isolated and immerse himself in the poetry alone, but rather evokes empathy from readers without difficulty, perhaps because there is a full reflection embedded within it.
By guessing rather than asserting, by wishing rather than declaring, reflections are refined by the poet into easy and familiar language and born as poetry.


It's weird
When I look at the faces of poets who say they are writing poetry,
The eyes are slightly distorted
Like someone trying not to cry on a holiday
Even though I got beaten badly
Like a woman who clenches her teeth and endures for whatever reason
The ridges of the face are slightly distorted

There is still no way to take a picture without being in a straight line
If you happen to drink with poets,
Independence fighters, guerrillas, teachers, and politicians
The unemployed have sorrow, the past is a receipt
It seems like I'm nodding while facing a table
Even the light bulbs hanging from the ceiling sway unrealistically.
Get back to the desert quickly and somehow
I think I need to dry my bones. What is this?
I think I should ask

I feel like I should cry
-Full text of "Poets"

Back cover text (poet's note)
What past life was it? It's a long time ago, but I remember we first met during this season.
It was the time when the trees were turning their last lights on to the world.
I was suffering from a mild case of despair, and, heartbroken, I wandered from bar to bar day after day, trying to look inside myself.
The more I did that, the more my wounds became visible.
My resistance was nothing more than taking me to the margins of the world? It was just to get me laid down.
Then I felt a little relieved and was able to get through the season without crying.
?
I often got caught in the rain without an umbrella.
That was how we first met.
Facing fate in a dead-end alley without any premonition.
Even though you hope it's not fate, you finally see the true nature of fate.
I hesitated for a moment, but then closed my eyes and accepted the sword that fate had extended to me.
Even the feeling of being stabbed deeply and bleeding profusely was sweet.
The days on earth, which could have been just one day, passed like the clouds of November.
?
Living and shining? Those things are in danger.
The flowers? Soon they will die, and the leaves will fall helplessly.
I went back to the bar.
I brought myself back to my drinking party, which may not be brilliant, but can be deeply dangerous. A tree that survives the winter without shedding its leaves is a sick tree.
The tree survives winter by shedding its leaves on its own. And this season, how glorious it is to suffer a little despair.

Poet's words
I was unhappy to meet you.

I was happy because I could be unhappy without leaving anything behind.

I was happy that there was someone I could say I loved in this unfortunate world.
love
It was unfortunate that it was you.


We were supposed to be stars that passed each other by
The time swaying in the evening water was so deep that I couldn't help it.
There was only one hand that we could hold onto.

The flowers bloomed
That day was a bad one to finish what I had to say.

I am happy to be able to leave these farewell words.

I am truly and utterly unhappy to have met you.

August 2016
Again at the emotional village, Mowoldang
Ryu Geun