Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Korean Poetry class

I think Korean language is a poetic language. In our last poetry class, we read poems written by Mr. Kim who taught the class. The title of poems are byul 별 하나, 별 둘, 별 셋.... the Korean word "byul (별)" is "star" in English. When we translate the byul into the English word star, the poem loses flavor. If the word is a person, the effect is almost like losing an arm or a leg. When I hear the word "byul", it brings up so much more than the word 'star". Same as the word hanul 하늘 and the word "sky" does. I can say so much more with few words in Korean. This is why I prefer to write poems in Korean, and prose in English. It has been fun to play with Koran words for a few months.

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