Scale and Stairs: Selected Poems by Won-Chung Kim, Christopher Merrill, Heeduk Ra

Abstract

I, "treacherous pen" cuts beyond the 1 edges of thepage, and thepoet has i to perform surgery, using stitches 1 inboth medical and literarysenses, i so that "between the lines . . . you'll ' find the rightpoem." i Although the "Plates" are less , immediately accessible than the i translated poems?which generate , theirown kind of excitement?they 1 provide the readerwith ways ofdis i covering not only something about 1 the elusive self but also about the i light, and darkness, that surround ] and define us. These poems provide i an introduction toan importantpoet , new to the Anglo-American audience. 1Robert Murray Davis i Universityof Oklahoma Ii Heeduk Ra. Scale and Stairs: Select [ ed Poems. Won-Chung Kim & Chris i topher Merrill, tr.Buffalo,New York. ] White Pine. 2009. 86 pages. $17. isbn i 978-1-893996-24-3 1 This collection of poems byHeeduk i Ra constantly reminds its reader ' that,like thepine tree in whose sap i oozing wound an ant is caught, she ] is often "oblivious to thehermaph i rodite of immortalityand mortality , / growing in [her]own body." The 1 book as a whole is elegiac, suffused i with the human spirit's struggle 1 against the inevitability of death, i which is captured in dichotomous [ imagery:ofwater and wetness inall i its forms set against desiccation, of , memory and forgetfulness,of body 1 and soul. The oppositional imagery , may also arise fromthephysical and 1 psychological presence of the 1948 1 partition dividing post-World War [ II Korea, which marks the country 1 like a "scar" or a "sore" or a "seam." , For American readers, Ra's 1 poetrymay be described by compar , ing it to the later poetry of James 1 Wright and, forEuropean readers, to the work of Tomas Transtr?mer. Like those of Wright and Trans tr?mer, Ra's common objects?such as a bowl of cooked rice in soup, a tobacco flower, a mule, and a pair of stockings?are illuminated from behind with a muted radiance that both outlines theirshapes and deep ens their shadows. The poet uses the objects tomold into recogniz able form the smokelike apparitions of sorrow, joy, fear, and religious experience. In several of the poems, death becomes a way to preserve life, par ticularly in "The Custom of Aer ial Burial," in which the speaker wonders ifshe is "suffering froma kind of xerosis," because she finds herself obsessively hanging fruits and flowers to dry in a "prema ture aerial burial," hoping to "bury them / before they rot in theirown juices." The dark humor and inter nal rhymes of thispoem's titleare a tribute to the translators' abilities. Nowhere in this collection does the translation seem to falter: there are no awkward or forced phrasings. Moreover, the tone is consistent and the word choices often astonishing. Christopher Merrill's short = introduction to the volume pro- = vides readers with basic biograph- = ical information on the poet and = touches upon some of the collec- = tion's themes. Even in translation, = Ra's poems are powerful evocations = of the mysteries that surround us. = Undoubtedly, readerswill feel much = like the author does when she says = of another work, "I was discovered = by a poet/' and the shadowed lumi- = nescence of Heeduk Ra's Scale and = Stairs will linger with them long = after thebook is closed. = Jeanetta CalhounMish = UniversityofOklahoma = Novica Tadic. Dark Things. Charles = Simic, tr.& intro. Rochester, New York. = BOA. 2009. 64 pages. $16. isbn 978-1-| 934414-23-1| Novica Tadic's many volumes of = poetry have won prizes in Serbia = and been translated into fourteen = languages, but until this year only = one English translation existed, = NightMail (1992). Yet after Bosnia, = Kosovo, 9/11, Iraq, and Afghani- = stan, the climate here has perhaps = become more receptive to Tadic's = surreal images, for two of his col- = lections appeared in 2009. In Dark = Things, the first, Charles Simic has = translated a collection of Tadic's = post-1992 verses. = Simic and others compare = Tadic's poems to Bosch's paint- = ings, since both merge nightmare = and reality.But Bosch rendered his = medieval hell in florid colors,while = Tadic's postmodern vision is virtu- = allymonochromatic. Only flashes of = fireand lightand "drops ofblood on = doorsteps" brighten the post...