Two Poems from Baek Seok, translated by Emily Jungmin Yoon

Me, Natasha, and the White Donkey

Because poor me
Loves beautiful Natasha
It snows and snows tonight

I do love Natasha
And it snows and snows
And I sit by my lonesome and drink soju
As I drink soju I think
Natasha and I should
Ride a white donkey at night when the snow piles and piles
And go to the mountains deep mountains where the crow-tit cries and live in a hut

It snows and snows
And I think of Natasha
There’s no way Natasha won’t come
She has already come into me and is talking quietly
Going to the mountains isn’t the same as being defeated by the world
Such a thing as the world is soiled and thus thrown out

It snows and snows
Beautiful Natasha loves me
And ŭng-ang ŭng-ang cries the white donkey somewhere adoring this night

나와 나타샤와 힌당나귀

가난한 내가
아름다운 나타샤를 사랑해서
오늘밤은 푹푹 눈이나린다

나타샤를 사랑은하고
눈은 푹푹 날리고
나는 혼자 쓸쓸히 앉어 燒酒를 마신다
燒酒를 마시며 생각한다
나타샤와 나는
눈이 푹푹 쌓이는밤 힌당나귀타고
산골로가쟈 출출이 우는 깊은산골로가 마가리에살쟈

눈은 푹푹 나리고
나는 나타샤를 생각하고
나타샤가 아니올리 없다
언제벌써 내속에 고조곤히와 이야기한다
산골로 가는것은 세상한테 지는것이아니다
세상같은건 더러워 버리는것이다 

눈은 푹푹 나리고
아름다운 나타샤는 나를 사랑하고
어데서 힌당나귀도 오늘밤이 좋아서 응앙 응앙 울을것이다

From the North

for Chŏng Hyŏn-ung

I left in the distant past
I left Puyŏ, the Sushen, Parhae, the Jurchen, the Liao Dynasty, the Jin,
The Stanovoy Range, the Yin Mountains, Amur, the Songhua River.
Betraying the tiger and the deer and the racoon
Deceiving the trout and the catfish and the frog, I left.

I remember how
The birch and larch grieved
I haven’t forgotten the seizing words of the reed and the iris
I haven’t forgotten how the Orochon held a farewell feast with wild boar
And how the Solon followed me for ten li and wept.

I then
Without any unassailable sorrow and solicitude
But with laziness took off for the far beyond
And so wore white clothes in the warm first sunlight, ate smooth rice, drank from a sweet spring, and napped.
At night I woke startled to faraway barks of dogs
And in the morning bowed to passersby
Yet I did not know my shame.

During that time tombstones broke, gold and silver treasures were buried, and even crows
Established a long genealogy
And so again in a new distant past
I, now pursued by truly unassailable sorrow and solicitude,
Returned to my old sky and earth, my placenta

But the sun has already grown old the moon is ashen the wind blows violently and only scant clouds wander
absently

Ah, my ancestors my siblings my relatives my loving neighbors, things I yearn things I love things I revere, my pride
and my strength they are not here, with wind and water and time they have passed and are not here.

北方에서 

- 鄭玄雄에게 -

아득한 녯날에 나는 떠났다
扶餘를 肅愼을 勃海를 女眞을 遼를 金을,
興安嶺을 陰山을 아무우르를 숭가리를.
범과 사슴과 너구리를 배반하고
송어와 메기와 개구리를 속이고 나는 떠났다. 

나는 그때
자작나무와 익갈나무의 슬퍼하든것을 기억한다
갈대와 장풍의 붙드든 말도 잊지않었다
오로촌이 멧돌을 잡어 나를 잔치해 보내든것도
쏠론이 십리길을 딸어나와 울든것도 잊지 않었다.

나는 그때
아모 익이지못할 슬픔도 시름도 없이
다만 게을리 먼 앞대로 떠나나왔다
그리하여 따사한 해ㅅ귀에서 하이얀 옷을 입고 매끄러운 밥을먹고 단샘을 마시고 낮잠을
잤다
밤에는 먼 개소리에 놀라나고
아츰에는 지나가는 사람마다에게 절을 하면서도
나는 나의 부끄러움을 알지못했다. 

그동안 돌비는 깨어지고 많은 은금보화는 땅에 묻히고 가마귀도 긴 족보를 이루었는데
이리하야 또 한 아득한 새 녯날이 비롯하는때
이제는 참으로 익이지못할 슬픔과 시름에 쫓겨
나는 나의 녯 한울로 땅으로—나의 胎盤으로 돌아왔으나 

이미 해는 늙고 달은 파리하고 바람은 미치고 보래구름만 혼자 넋없이 떠도는데

아, 나의 조상은 형제는 일가친척은 정다운 이웃은 그리운것은 사랑하는 것은 우럴으는
것은 나의 자랑은 나의 힘은 없다 바람과 물과 세월과 같이 지나가고 없다.

Baek Seok is one of the most eminent names in the canon of Korean poetry. Baek’s poetry is considered to harmoniously display both modernist and folk tendencies. He was born in 1912, only two years after the Japanese Empire officially occupied the Korean peninsula, in a town called Jeongju in North Pyeongan Province. He was in what became North Korean at the end of the Korean War, which labeled him as a poet who consciously and ideologically chose North Korea over the South. This stigma disallowed his and other North Korea-based writers’ works to be read in South Korea, and the rediscovery and canonization of Baek’s poetry started in the 1960’s, gaining momentum through the 1980’s. Recent research reveals that he passed away in 1996.

Emily Jungmin Yoon is the author of A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco, 2018), winner of the 2019 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award and finalist for the 2020 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Ordinary Misfortunes (Tupelo Press, 2017), winner of the Sunken Garden Chapbook Prize. She has also translated and edited a chapbook of poems, Against Healing: Nine Korean Poets (Tilted Axis, 2019). Yoon serves as the Poetry Editor for The Margins, the digital magazine of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and is a PhD candidate in Korean literature at the University of Chicago.

These translations appeared in Bat City Review Issue 14.