Poet's words

Part 1
Lighting
Should I invent myself?
Fingerprints of the Wind
Taking the clouds home
burning cold
Nine moods
Not yet sick
Beautiful Terms and Conditions
Who pressed the butterfly's white sleep with a black stone?
The scriptures of those who worship the cold wind as a god
Habits of Mourning
Cloud patterns
Of no use

Part 2
Write down the fortune of cherry blossoms
Fisherman's fish
Memories of auscultation
Flowers are the deafness of trees
Between the eyebrows
Tree's eyelids
Aekong
Make a patchwork
Who will erase the bird's footprints on the water?
The wings that have never flown in the air, the wind that rules
does not exist
Parallax of stars
Star Name Naming Center
Miss, spring day
Step on a peony

Part 3
Benefits of eyelashes
pinhole camera
Pills in a six-legged room
The rhythm is still falling from the bodies of the stars
Please give me flowers
breathtaking rear view
Confession at the tip of your feet
Stars rising over the salt desert
Late-night greetings
carpal tunnel
Memory congestion
Love with a Dead Poet
Come to the moon
Thump
Humming, humming

Part 4
Salbyeol
bird shot by an arrow
Raindrops pitter-patter in the flower shade
High scenery
silent reading
Old news
Comma made with flower seeds
Strong tears
Soundtrack of the Stars
Cloud Frame
Picking up morning flowers in the evening
Hold your wrist
A book flowing in reverse

Commentary | The Hypothesis of Hearing Ears and Endurance
Jo Kang-seok (literary critic)

“What should we call things that suddenly appear and then suddenly disappear?”
Towards things that blow, stay, and blow again
Affectionate Titles

1.


anyone
Here are ears that listen for a long time to the sentences engraved with water droplets.
―From “Who Will Erase the Bird’s Footprints on the Water?”

Here are 65 poems that linger like the spring sunshine, yet remain unforgettable for a long time.
Poet Lee Eun-gyu's first poetry collection, "Affectionate Title," debuted in the Kookje Newspaper in 2006 and the Dong-A Ilbo in 2008.
At the time of his debut, he was praised for “giving poetry a sense of openness rarely seen in modern poetry thanks to his lively imagination, along with the inspiration provided by the combination of sophisticated images and statements,” but he has been quiet for the past six years.
Meanwhile, the poet stayed silent, away from the hustle and bustle, not reacting immediately to what he saw.
What he was absorbed in was 'listening'.
A time of patience, concentration, and waiting, listening to the wind, the sound of the trees, fading memories, and the relationship between you and me becoming the past.
And then he deepened and broadened.



2.


Literary critic Jo Kang-seok said in his commentary, “The subtitle of Lee Eun-gyu’s first poetry collection could be ‘The West Wind of the 21st Century.’”
It means “an album that is literally blown by the wind.”

Lee Eun-gyu's longing for the wind can already be sensed in his debut work, "The Scriptures of Those Who Worship the Cold Wind as a God."
“The wind is not an idol because it rejects form.” “When you become like what you long for, your blood cannot help but flow in that direction.”
For Lee Eun-gyu, wind is religion.

It is natural that he would enrich his 'field of vision (field of poetry)' with flowers, trees, and clouds that follow the wind.
He wonders about “the time when sunlight that could not pass through the clouds / was reflected and scattered” and “the time when clouds that could not pass through the darkness / were scattered across the sky.”
"What is the average lifespan of a cloud when a cloud cap hangs on the top of a tree?" he wants to know. ("Taking a Cloud Home"). "The tree's memory of water is the way the sap in my body flows through the rings to reach you." ("The Eyelids of a Tree")
What is noteworthy is his attitude toward natural objects and phenomena.
For him, nature is not an object or a function.
Isn't that the one who made the wind his religion?
This collection of poems contains a new perspective on nature, which is infinitely moving and working, and on nature that divides esotericism.


The tree that lost its flowers quickly sprouts green leaves.
The leaves are the ears of the tree that open to the flowers

(syncopation)

When the spring of confusion follows the flowers
The season of the remaining tree is to endure the emptiness of the place where the flowers have fallen.
My ears are filled with words of one voice
The tree's deafness comes from the flower and goes to the flower.

(syncopation)

Will the flowers that lost their way be heard again?
To the tree that asks, dropping a few leaves
―The part about “flowers are the deafness of trees”

We are accustomed to the idea that the withering of flowers represents loss and emptiness.
But have you ever wondered about the "tree that remains"? The well-being of the tree that "endures the emptiness of the flower-withered space" and drops a few "leaves" that were once ears open to the flowers?
How about “a tree that speaks to the wind with its petals as flesh/ and a fish that engraves the vibrations of the water on its scales/ and a cluster of flowers floating in the watery air over there” (“Fish Neighbor”)?

Although Lee Eun-gyu's imagination unfolds with nature as its main subject, it is now confirmed that it is not limited to the formal imagination of individual objects, but is based on a dynamic imagination centered on space and space, that is, movement and relationships.
―From Jo Kang-seok’s commentary, “The Hypothesis of Hearing Ears and Endurance”


3.


A path hidden in an open bookshelf
Between the lines, which I enjoy reading more than the sentences, a shadow gathers.

(syncopation)

The absence of a single voice leads to a voice without a single one
The shadows wandering along the road grow longer by an inch.
Pupils dyed in the shadows between the lines
Now the pupils will move to the rhythm of the letters.
―「Silent Reading」 section


Between eyebrows
If there is one more eye in the place called the space between the eyebrows
Between the trees
A ray of sunlight in the shadow of the deceased, standing like bones in the empty air

(syncopation)

I like the look between the eyebrows better than the distant gaze
While I was standing around looking, all the flowers came and went.

What the tree prefers is not flowers, but the sky.
When the bones of the void shake, the tree is no longer upright.
The footsteps drifting in each shade are long
―「Between the eyebrows」 section

Poet Lee Eun-gyu follows the nature of the wind, which blows, stays, and blows again.
It can be guessed that he would be sensitive to 'emptiness' and 'between'.
At first glance, we might say that their commonality is 'emptiness', but he sees it as a 'moving cavity' and a space of relationships.
The realm of those who enjoy reading between the lines more than the sentences, who “wanted to find their way by wandering between the lines,” the realm of “the bones of the void shaking,” the realm of “between the eyebrows.”
It is here that Cheon Eun-gyu's dynamic imagination is born.
I hear “the sound of a heart from a bird that doesn’t exist” and “the voice of a flower from a spring that doesn’t exist.”
He knows that “the unknown of that egg that has never become a bird is the wind,” and that “wings that have never soared through the air have no wind to govern,” and therefore “the back of those who have never become birds or winds is the air.” (“Wings that have never soared through the air have no wind to govern”)


4.


The exploration of the void and the gap deepens into the intimate wounds surrounding “things that suddenly exist and suddenly do not exist”—absence and absence.

Sometimes things break up without you even realizing it.

The passing spring
The title you
Buttons that close the chest and eyelashes and such
―The “Efficacy of Eyelashes” section


Why is the fragrance at its peak in an instant?
Picking up fallen flower petals in the morning and evening together
But we don't stay in the same time

(syncopation)

The long-tailed star that suddenly hesitated
The moment when the line of the calendar day falls

Lovers who met at different times
You can't pick up flowers in the morning at night.
We are simply broken down into you and me.
―Excerpt from “Picking Up Morning Flowers in the Evening”

Eun-gyu Lee writes “you” and reads “me” with “nonexistent voice.”
Tolerating the “dwarf memories that wander along the paths of the body” (“The Scriptures of Those Who Deify the Cold Wind”), not to forget “words heard long ago but that have lost their place to return to” and “that become promises the moment they are heard” (“Flowers are the Deafness of Trees”) – these “habits of mourning” became his tasks.

Lee Eun-gyu's poetry possesses an aesthetic of warmth and affection.
If warmth comes from a gaze that embraces the pain and wounds of what has lingered and passed, longing comes from beautifully capturing and preserving compassion for what has disappeared and passed.
Let's listen to the beautiful waves of affectionate singing, without letting anything go to waste.