Sorrowtoothpaste mirrorcream by Hye-sun Kim and translated by Don Mee Choi

This is poetry from Korea, Republic of.

Sorrowtoothpaste mirrorcream by Hye-sun Kim translated by Don Mee Choi is published by Action Books. This is a Book originally written in Korean. This was published in 2014.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780989804813E12.

Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream, by Kim Hyesoon and translated by Don Mee Choi, is a title that makes ordinary bathroom objects misbehave. Sorrow becomes toothpaste. Mirror becomes cream. The domestic turns linguistic, bodily, ridiculous, and grim. Kim’s Korean poetry thrives in exactly this transformation, where gendered routines and consumer surfaces open into grotesque psychic theater. Choi’s translation preserves the compound weirdness, the speed of the title’s invention, and the refusal to let any object stay clean. I would read this book as one of Kim’s confrontations with the intimate machinery of the body: washing, looking, smearing, swallowing, performing. It is funny in the way nightmares can be funny after you wake up sweating. For readers who want poetry to contaminate everyday life, this is essential.

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.