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A Poetry Reading by Poet Jin Eun-young "In Houyhnhnmland"
by Korean Literature Now December 3, 2024
Jin Eun-young
In Houyhnhnmland
Books soaked in the wine of his blood
Nakba in Arabic—
Shoah in Hebrew—
The somehow beautiful shape of the lips around such words
Through the TV’s Hubble telescope,
We can see at the end of space another world’s children dying
If we don’t cover our eyes, if we don’t turn from the sight
We can always watch death
Close by as well
We can just imagine—it’s so far away
[...]
Everything is like that, from a distance
A warm campfire, the burning city
Up in the sky
Like the long-vanished stars, the screams twinkle
Translated by Seth Chandler
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