Book record
Unexpected vanilla
Hye-mi Yi
Translated from Korean by So J
Unexpected Vanilla, by Yi Hye-mi and translated by So J, has a title that feels delicate, playful, and stranger than it first appears. Vanilla is familiar, sweet, sometimes dismissed as plain, but the unexpected vanilla turns flavor into surprise. In this Korean poetry collection, I would expect attention to sensory detail, intimacy, contemporary life, and the odd charge that appears when ordinary things refuse their assigned blandness. Tilted Axis Press often brings formally alert, contemporary Asian writing into English, and So J’s translation likely preserves the poems’ agility and tonal freshness. I would read this book as a reminder that subtlety is not the opposite of intensity. Sometimes the most interesting poems begin with something small, pale, fragrant, and supposedly harmless, then let it become uncanny.
- Published
- 2020
- Publisher
- Tilted Axis Press
- Language
- Korean
- Country
- Korea, Republic of
- ISBN
- 9781911284505