Part 1: Holding hands and singing a song, slowly jumping down the hole

Small Theater/ And the Foreseen Future/ Inji/ Cube/ Muyeong/ Mondergreen/ Jodo/ Sa-Yeon Family/ Ward Diary/ Then/ Future Things

Part 2: If you step on someone's shadow too much, you'll die quickly.

How You and My Cats Conversation / The End of Summer / Westbound / Suicide Addiction / Entropy / Human Ecology Report / Stopped but Continued / The Little God Meows and Cries / Non-Summer / Polyimide Film / Dreaming Book / Schoolgirl / New Job / Future of the Future / Snow, Snow, Snow / Taxi Driver

Part 3: A dog will only have a dog's mind.

Gu's Diary/ Gu's Diary/ Vitality/ Proper Living/ The most recent love poem I wrote is May/ They say there's nothing easier than hating someone you love, but I know the parts of you that are worth loving too/ The person who nurtures sadness/ Please take care of summer/ Seo Eun-jae/ Our book/ The Museum of Shape Memory/ Humans started from birds/ [title][h1][/title]/ The eternal summer child in a glass bottle/ Indoor swimming/ The power of variables

I like that the end of the world is approaching us with great strides.

Cathedral/ Development/ Hashtag Contemporaneity/ Error Code: 224003/ Cohabitation/ Who Ate All Those ( )?/ Eyebrow Hair Smell/ Syndrome/ Merry Holiday/ Perfect Completion Ceremony/ Wooden Building/ Tree Next Year/ Mechanical Love Poem/ Wintertime/ Container/ Lang/ Blue Nude/ The Last Thing I Said to You Is Don't Leave Me Here

Commentary_The Broken Love Machine
Ha Hyuk-jin (literary critic)

If you keep the door locked for a long time.

I heard the sound of the projector turning.
That's probably the sound of the refrigerator running.
The sound of the stacked films being used up one by one.

I sat curled up on the bedside table.
Like a dog in broad daylight.
Looking at the front door that hasn't opened for several days.
No one came because no one was invited.

My hands and feet gradually became transparent.
I became a nobody.

A documentary about Antarctica was being broadcast on an old CRT.
Melting glaciers.
A large hole through the glacier.
_「And the Foreseen Future」 section

『The Eternal Glass Bottle Child』 contains the result of fiercely weaving together, through poetic language, unnameable emotions and fragmented sections of life that have not been granted order.
The tension felt from the title—the absoluteness of “eternity,” the isolation of “glass bottle,” and the vulnerability of “child”—is the core framework of perception that runs through this collection of poems.
The conflicting and fundamental questions of love and loss, existence and destruction, constantly intersect in each psalm.
In particular, the sense of 'destruction' is the starting point of Lee Young-eun's poetry.
This collection of poems meticulously explores and records the speaker's personal emotions and daily life as time approaches its end.
The apocalypse is both a small breakdown within an individual and the world collapsing.
Even in this time and space of destruction, the poet does not sit helplessly, but gazes at the broken pieces and collects fragments of emotion.
Among them, the emotion that is most important is love.
In Lee Young-eun's poetry, love is not a matter of function or utility.
Love is an event that makes the poetic subject exist as 'I'.
The 'I' without love "gradually becomes transparent in its hands and feet" and "becomes a non-existent person" ("And the Foreseen Future").
The poet's language is supported by a profound and fundamental belief that without love even the world is meaningless.
Love is a destructive belief that can destroy the subject, and without love, 'I' cannot exist.
Lee Young-eun's poetic subject steps cautiously, yet decisively, toward that place of truth.

(…) hand

I could love someone just by holding their hand, but people don't love me just by holding my hand.
at last

All love has failed.
I failed and failed again.

No matter how much I fail, I was created that way in the beginning.
I kept repeating what had already failed.
There were many people whose hearts didn't touch even when they hugged each other.
(…)
_Excerpt from the "Human Ecology Report"

However, 『Eternal Glass Bottle Child』 is not a poetry collection that simply talks about romantic love.
Rather, the poet faces the fact that the emotion of love cannot be reduced to a set narrative or ending.
Love is always a mess, sometimes it comes too late or it pops up when no one is expecting it.
Lee Young-eun's poetry meticulously captures such unpredictable moments of love, freezing them in a calm and cold state, like a photograph.
And the reader is left to stare at that frozen moment for a long time.
Therefore, reading this collection of poems is like encountering the language of love that is rekindled where love has ended.
The poet says:
“All love has failed.
“Failed and failed again” (Human Ecology Report).
But precisely because of that, we can love again.
In this way, Lee Young-eun's first poetry collection can be read as a fierce and quiet declaration to fill the time after love with love again.

Lee Young-eun's poetry speaks of emotions destined to crumble, shatter, and scatter, yet it proves that all of this is by no means meaningless.
Even in the midst of a series of despair and pain, the poet does not easily succumb to futility, and never gives up on the path of language that penetrates emotions, endlessly “establishing that he has loved” (“New Work”).
What lies at the end of that road will be the next love, the next being, the next 'me'.
So this collection of poems is a story of a love that has ended and a record of a premonition of a love that has not yet arrived.
Therefore, Lee Young-eun's poetic subject reaches out even if love ends in failure and the shadow of separation does not disappear.
Even if the fingers of 'you' who are holding that hand are "broken" ("Polyimide Film"), I will hold that hand.
And between those knuckles, he captures in poetry the irrational belief of “hope that went out / limping back” (“Jodo”).
If you haven't lost love yet, or if you believe love is already over, this collection of poems will reach you.
What we read is a language of love riddled with failure.
But in that language, ‘I’ am reborn.
Instead of kneeling before love, 『The Eternal Glass Bottle Child』 chooses to exist with love, thus inviting you into the world of love and destruction.

love you

Which love is the biggest?
I just couldn't figure that out

As we got up from the living room and closed the large south-facing window, I looked back at the light that had fallen on our arms and the afterimages it had left behind.
I wanted to live like that.
I even secretly muttered these words.

I heard the sound of breaking glass from behind me.

I believed that an ambiguous mind was growing.
_「Non-summer」part

Of course, this love doesn't lead to anything.
Nevertheless, “words like a pile of burnt ashes” (“The Smell of Eyebrow Hair”) are by no means meaningless.
The record of love, which has become “a word that will never burn” (Our Book) because it has completely burned out, endlessly delays the fixation of the meaning of love by floating endlessly.
Lee Young-eun's poetic subject, who says, "I was not afraid of the future that awaited me" ("Wooden Building") while facing such an unyielding fate, now finally dances the dance of love that "broke my ankles" ("Polyimide Film").
And when I close the book like that, from far away, a ‘you’ who looks similar to ‘me’ comes to me “with a twisted ankle” (“The last thing I said to you is don’t leave me here”) and holds out a hand.
It's not hard to imagine what happens next.
'I' will hold that hand once again.
I will dance a limping dance of love.
The dance will be as dangerous as it is beautiful, and as beautiful as it is dangerous.
_Ha Hyuk-jin, in the commentary

A Mini-Interview with Poet Lee Young-eun

Q1.
You are greeting readers for the first time with 『The Eternal Glass Bottle Child』.
I'm curious about your mindset when preparing this poetry collection.


I hoped that readers would feel like they were heading towards the end of the world as they slowly read through the last chapter of the poetry collection.
Other than that, what if everyone who knows me reads this book of poems and hates me?
All I had were strange worries and anxieties like, 'What if even people who don't know me start to hate me?'
When I think of a book of poems that will acquire physical properties and be turned page by page in someone's hands, I feel a fierce fear for some reason.

Q2.
The title of the poetry collection is 'The Eternal Glass Bottle Child'.
I'm curious about what impression you wanted to give readers through the title, and how you decided on the title of your poetry collection.


I have absolutely no talent for making decisions.
I thought about the title for a long time, but no good idea came to mind. In the end, I asked my editor for advice, and he asked me if I thought of the title 'Eternal Glass Bottle Boy'.
It was a title I had never thought of, but it seemed like it was one I had been thinking about for a long time.
I liked that feeling.
I pictured myself left alone.
In a space as fragile as a glass bottle, but ironically a place where one can remain alone forever without breaking, the image of one being left shivering in the cold for a long time.

Q3.
It was noticeable that the speakers of the poem actively practiced love while simultaneously wishing for destruction.
Why do we draw destruction while loving?

I think that a breakup is like the end of the world or destruction.
And I believe that destruction is an inevitable ending no matter how hard humans try.
In fact, I hope that it will inevitably come rather than an inevitable ending.
I wish this fucking world would just end all at once.
It was a really perfect ending.
But I want to avoid breakups as much as possible.
There's something I often jokingly say to my lover: I'd rather be bereaved than separated.
I think I can organize these feelings like this.
Parting is inevitable, and so I wish the world would just end.
Then it's not the end of love, it's the end of the world.

Q4.
This collection of poems covers a wide range of seasons, from spring to winter.
Yet, cold images like glaciers and snow seem to stand out the most.
I wonder if there is a reason why you actively included cold images in your poetry.


I thought I was obsessed with summer images, but as I was putting together the manuscript, I realized that I had used a lot of cold images.
Why was that? Thinking back now, I think I felt most familiar with the cold winter.
On the way home, there are times when I feel safe in a quiet alley with the cold air on my face.
I want to bury my head in my muffler and walk carefully, stepping on the snow.
It's sad that something frozen is hard, but it also melts and breaks easily.

Q5.
Lastly, please say a few words to the readers who will meet 『The Eternal Glass Bottle Boy』.


Hello, this is Lee Young-eun.
I am both excited and excited to be able to greet my readers with my first poetry collection.
Strangely enough, I think that if I come across just one poem that particularly resonates with me, I have successfully read a book of poetry.
I hope that while reading 『The Eternal Glass Bottle Child』, you will find at least one poem that touches your heart.
And I hope you can achieve all your love.


Poet's words

Anyway, everything will fall apart and when we reach the end, it will start again, so only a love that can never know the end will remain.

October 2025
Lee Young-eun