A Crumpled Admission Ticket:Ontology of Minorities and "Queering" the Historical Archive* Hyejin Oh Translated by J Noh Making you stand under the international flags Your sorrow disqualified by lack of foul smell The posture of a person that cannot be stained by the prosperity of a community The monologue to be thrown away is digging a holein the air with a boredom that can monopolize a full bench and uselessness of being engrossed in a gum's will,a gum's talent, and a gum's shape after it was spat out all day long in celebration of Firefighters' Day, in celebration of Arbor Day, in celebration of the UN International Peace Day, like the hunger of a homeless person who picked thewrong place to pay his silent tribute, [End Page 335] like a mourner's yelling for more kimchi at afuneral reception, like a long-absented grief until black suits with grieving faces quietly disappear crinkling in the pocket a crumpled admission ticket. —Kim Miryeong, "An Admission Ticket"1 Community and the Admission Ticket: Inscribing the Existence of Minorities in the History of Community The first poem of Kim Miryeong's poetry collection A New Shape of Wave renders a vivid portrait of someone. Someone who is aimlessly throwing away "monologue" in "the air," feeling some sort of "grief" under international flags hung proudly as if to competitively boast their status of a nation-state. Someone who finds it hard to take in the process and the affect of public celebrations and mourning, like "a homeless person who picked the wrong place to pay silent tribute" on official anniversaries such as "Firefighters' Day," "Arbor Day," and "the UN International Peace Day," or like a "mourner" at a funeral reception yelling for "more kimchi." Of course, nobody pays attention to such dissonance or irritation the person would feel because those feelings are so "disqualified" that "cannot be stained by the prosperity of a community." But rather than putting on the "grieving face" that people with "black suits" make, this person would just wait "on the doorstep" or "outside the [End Page 336] door" until those in black suits disappear, while "crinkling" in the pocket "a crumpled admission ticket," of which the issuer and time of issuance are unknown ("Admission Ticket.") This person, who seems to be rejected by a community where "an admission ticket" is required, or at least reject it for his or her own sake, devises a strategy persistently for a long time and puts it into practice. For example, there is this determination to "chop green onions" to stack them "high enough to set a Guinness world record," and of course, it is not the "green onions" that are important. What truly matters is the thought of "using green onions with malicious intent." "Like a revolutionary consoling small failures in the dark," the person chops green onions "until mince mince mince becomes chop chop chop / until green onions become fingers / so that a background becomes a theme / and the theme song blares in an unexpected scene." "If not green onions, waves are fine." Even though the piled-up "greenness" may look like "self-harms of unknown origin" and one may "chop something so hard only to find nothing has been chopped," the person would chop them sedulously, and hence the poet calls this person "a protestor" ("A Protestor.") The poet also imagines some beings reluctant to enter the narrative of a community because of "strange horns that sprung all over their bodies," a place where "the merry feet" of others "have not reached yet," or a "direction" in which "thing and things that aren't gather" and play together ("Direction Where the Ball Rolls.") In the poem, the narrator talks about "direction," not "place," because without a doubt there will be no such a place as a separate utopia existing only for people with "strange horns." By capturing "the direction" rather than a place, the narrator tries to follow the trails of people with "strange horns," and here, "I perjure myself" is their strategy. But what does it mean? "Motion mimics mimetic words / and sound mimics onomatopoeia." Similarly, "in the reflection, you look...