In this Book
- Portrait of a Suburbanite: Poems of Choi Seung-ja
- Book
- 2015
- Published by: Cornell University Press
This volume is a translation of Choi Seung-ja's 1991 anthology titled Portrait of a Suburbanite. Published in the series of "100 Prominent Korean Poets" by Mirae Press, the poems in this volume were selected from four of Choi's previous works titled, Love of This Age (1981), Merry Diary (1984), House of Memory (1989), and the subsequently published My Tomb, Green (1993). Speaking with a fierce sense of equality and independence, Choi Seung-ja's poetry battled ossified forms of language not only on the political but also the personal front. Like her male colleagues, Choi parodied and critiqued the idol of the father, but even further, she insightfully explored irreverent content to reveal the gendered constraints of the lyric form. In particular, Choi exposed the idolatrous power of the lover, the basis of exploitation and injustice at the most intimate level. On top of their political disempowerment as citizens, the private and domestic alienation of women as daughters, lovers, and wives form a deep stratum of repression. When Choi's women personae broke this long silence of compliance nurtured by the traditional lyric and voiced themselves as exploited and traumatized, yet fearless and tenacious human beings, the shock of this transgression shook the nation. In turn it demonstrate how long and how powerfully the gender constrictions had been imposed on Korean women.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- pp. vii-xvii
- Part I Love of This Age
- Before, I Was
- pp. 2-3
- Dog-like Autumn
- pp. 4-5
- At Daeheung Temple in Haenam
- pp. 8-9
- Women and Men
- pp. 12-15
- Age Thirty
- pp. 16-17
- Rainy Day Reunion
- pp. 18-19
- Do You Remember Cheongpa Village?
- pp. 20-21
- Ooh I Want to Abandon You
- pp. 22-23
- She, My First Love
- pp. 24-25
- End of Autumn
- pp. 26-27
- My Love Is About To
- pp. 28-29
- Rainy Season
- pp. 30-31
- Woman in the Empty Air
- pp. 32-33
- Yearning Fallen Into A Keg
- pp. 34-35
- Loving Hands
- pp. 36-37
- Love of This Age
- pp. 38-39
- Self-Portrait
- pp. 40-41
- Macaroni Western of Mali Estuary
- pp. 42-43
- Apprehension
- pp. 46-47
- The Phone Rang Endlessly to Find Me
- pp. 48-51
- Somewhere Without Me Now
- pp. 54-55
- Our Love in 197X
- pp. 56-59
- No Appetite for Tonight's Dinner
- pp. 60-61
- Therefore Someday, Love
- pp. 62-65
- Here Comes Ownerless Sleep
- pp. 66-67
- Where I Cannot Call You You
- pp. 70-73
- Were You Happy?
- pp. 74-76
- Part II House of Memory
- Would You Teach Me A Bird?
- pp. 80-81
- I Went to the Sea in Winter
- pp. 82-83
- Portrait of Mr. Phon Ga-Gya
- pp. 84-85
- Merry Diary
- pp. 86-89
- On Womanhood
- pp. 90-91
- Yeoui Island Rhapsody
- pp. 92-103
- Confession
- pp. 104-105
- 20 Years Later, To Jie
- pp. 108-111
- Untitled 1
- pp. 112-119
- Untitled 2
- pp. 120-129
- Civilization
- pp. 130-131
- Slow-Motion Video
- pp. 132-133
- Wannabe Poetry
- pp. 136-137
- Return, I Write Poetry
- pp. 138-139
- Brief History of Spring
- pp. 140-141
- A Forget-Me-Not
- pp. 142-143
- Western Harbor
- pp. 144-145
- House of Memory
- pp. 146-149
- Now They Must Go
- pp. 150-151
- Prison of Hope
- pp. 152-157
- Return Now
- pp. 158-159
- Portrait of a Suburbanite
- pp. 160-161
- Receiver Is Already
- pp. 164-165
- House of Destruction
- pp. 166-167
- Never Will I Pray
- pp. 168-169
- The Night Before
- pp. 170-171
- Dance of Pain
- pp. 172-174
- Part III Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 1
- pp. 176-177
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 2
- pp. 178-179
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 3
- pp. 180-181
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 4
- pp. 182-183
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 5
- pp. 184-185
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 6
- pp. 186-187
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 7
- pp. 188-189
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 8
- pp. 190-191
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 9
- pp. 192-193
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 10
- pp. 194-195
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 11
- pp. 196-197
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 12
- pp. 198-199
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 13
- pp. 200-201
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 14
- pp. 202-203
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 15
- pp. 204-205
- Unready to Forget or Ready to Remember 16
- pp. 206-207
- The East Sea
- pp. 208-209
- The Capital Species
- pp. 210-211
- Index of Poems
- pp. 214-216
- Other Works in the Series
- pp. 217-222