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“ For those
who have never been young,
hence never can age
(젊은 적이 없기에 늙을 수도 없는 이들에게) ”

시인 최영미가 첫 영문 시선집 『The Party Was Over』을 출간했다. 25년 넘게 시를 쓰며 6권의 시집을 발간하고, 시집을 펴낼 때마다 새로운 세계를 보여주었던 시인의 좀 뒤늦은 영문 시집이다. 『The Party Was Over』에는 첫 시집 『서른, 잔치는 끝났다』에서『다시 오지 않는 것들』 까지 6권의 시집에서 선정한 25편의 시가 실렸다. 전승희와 Alice Kim 의 정확하며 생동감 있는 번역은 언어의 벽을 넘어 해외의 독자들에게도 최영미 시의 맛과 결을 감상할 기회를 줄 것이다.

영어로 번역된 최영미 시인의 첫번째 시집 『The Party Was Over』가 한국에서 출간되었다. 서정시에서 풍자까지 다양한 스타일을 넘나드는 언어의 곡예사, 톡 쏘는 듯 강렬하면서도 깊은 여운을 남기는 서정, 지하철 시리즈와 "돼지들에게"에서 보여준 놀라운 발상, 가슴을 후벼 파면서도 무릎을 탁 치게 만드는 재치 넘치는 표현들은 영어로 옮겨도 살아있다.

Reviews

“A clear language full of polysemy (다의성이 풍부한 명석한 언어)”
_ The Asahi Shimbun (아사히 신문)


“Choi Young-mi wrote the poem in Korean, her native tongue. It is a language that tends first to cool its emotions, then to assimilate them; unruly drama and dialogue, in their retelling, take on the muted affect of melancholy.”
_ Bo Seo, the Paris Review


“Choi’s poetry sharply stabs the Korean society’s hypocrisy, fallacy and complacency and once again as the conscience of the generation she provides the raison d'?tre for poets.
최영미 시집은 한국사회의 위선과 허위, 안일의 급소를 예리하게 찌르며 다시 한번 시대의 양심으로서 시인의 존재이유를 구현한다.
_ Jongho Yu, THE ISU LITERARY AWARD, Judge's Citation
(유종호 교수, 이수문학상 심사평에서)

“Her sincerity in writing poems and elaborative language stand out.”
_ Kyungrim Shin, Poet

James Kimbrell
"Choi Young-Mi's poems are un-compromising and threatening to conventional values of Korean society. Her style is her independence. Her poetry is very much a lived poetry.

Chase Twichell
“Choi Young-Mi's steely, restless, passionate investigation of love and politics bursts from the page with a wonderful fresh recklessness.”

Ⅰ
Already
At Thirty, The Party Was Over
Monster
At the Fruit Stand
Song of March
Old
The Aftertaste is not bitter
My 50s
Novel, Postscript

Ⅱ

To the Pigs
In Sun-woon Temple
11 o’clock Sunday Morning
In the Subway 4
In the Subway 5
In the Subway: Yellow October
Seoul, June 2008

Ⅲ

Weather Forecasts
On My Way to the Department Store
Dreams of Four Seasons
At Home All Day
The Easiest Path
Under the Name of Woman
Irony
Folding Towels
About Myself

Acknowledgments
Notes
The Author
The Translators

"I’m now old and sick.
I don’t even have the strength to get up, but
They ask me for a pearl,
A pearl just one last time…"
- from "To The Pigs"


At Thirty, The Party Was Over


Of course I know, that I liked
the revolutionist rather than the revolution,
the bar rather than the drinks.
And when I was lonely,
I've enjoyed the sweet hum of a love song
rather than an "O Comrades!" anthems.
But does it matter now?

The party is over.
The liquor's gone,
and though people left one by one,
finally even he;
after paying their dues,
and finding their shoes.

I know, in the back of my mind
that
there will be somebody here, alone,
cleaning up the table,
remembering everything with her bitter tears,
that
she will finish the unfinished song that he had started.

Yes, maybe, I know
that
she will set up the table and call them
back
before the sunrise.
She will light the stage once more
with all preparations done.

But does it matter now?