All the Garbage of the World, Unite! by Kim Hyesoon and translated by Don Mee Choi

This is poetry from Korea, Republic of.

All the Garbage of the World, Unite! by Kim Hyesoon translated by Don Mee Choi is published by Action Books. This is a Book originally written in Korean. This was published in 2011.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780983148012E12.

All the Garbage of the World, Unite!, by Kim Hyesoon and translated by Don Mee Choi, is not interested in behaving. The title alone turns political slogan, refuse pile, and feminist grotesque into one gleefully contaminated field. Kim is one of the great contemporary Korean poets of the body under pressure, and Choi’s translations have helped make her English-language presence feel electric rather than merely representative. I would read this collection as a revolt against cleanliness: aesthetic cleanliness, national cleanliness, gendered cleanliness, the whole machinery that wants suffering packaged nicely. Kim’s poems often let the abject speak, laugh, multiply, and leak beyond control. For readers who want poetry that is ferocious, hilarious, disgusting, and formally alive, this book is not a side road. It is a main event.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.