Forty Two Greens

Poems of Chonggi Mah

Translated by Youngshil Cho

Subjects: Poetry
Imprint: Distribution Partners
Paperback : 9781949933086, 106 pages, August 2020

Table of contents

Author's Preface

Part 1

Heart of Spring Day
Forty Two Greens
The Olle Trail in the Evening
The Site of Gyunghakwon 2
A Day of Dew
Paper at a Standstill
Dreaming of Hemingway
About Hope
Mother's World
Rain in the Ruin
The New Stone Age Artist
Trace of Hands
Sillan Speech
A Few Days in Dublin 1
A Few Days in Dublin 2
Swan Lake
Wings

Part 2

Lover of Dew
Taming Gossip 11
Taming Gossip 13
Taming Gossip 14
Taming Gossip 17
Sunset Glow over the Edges of Freeway
Evening of a Pious Waterfowl
Neighborhood of My Old House
Aged Eardrums
Wild Dream
Mother, Freedom, September's Long Journey
270 Seconds
Artist in the Storm
The Fifth Taste
Black Necktie
November's Footstep
Soliloquy
The Couple of Gyerim

Part 3

Sea of Alexandria
Today's Fortune
Alley Purified
Mountain Climbing
Gobi Desert 1
Gobi Desert 2
Gobi Desert 3
Gobi Desert 4
Autumn's Days
Killing a Bug
Train Station of Youngtae Kim
For a Benefactor
Qualitative Analysis of Water
Crocodile 2
Citizenship Restored
Root of Dew

About The Author

Commentary

Dew and Flower, and Then the Poet ∙ Joo Youn Kim

The poems in this book, by the way they speak to all parts of our minds, invite us to come alive and experience each movement, each emotion and action, and some statements therein, intuitively and aesthetically.

Description

This is about a Korean man's everyday life in the milieu of contemporary America; his struggle to find meaning in his immigrant life, in his vocation as a medical doctor, and to grow as a poet, a high calling for him. Weaving through personal narratives with the backdrop of historic events both domestic and foreign, he reaches a moralist's viewpoint, as he searches for a right way to live. Equally excellent in lyric and narrative form, these poems give an indication he has found what he's been after—good human relationships and artistic achievements, two founts giving ample significance to life.

Chonggi Mah, a beloved poet of Korea and a retired medical doctor, has written over ten collections of poems and prose. Eyes of Dew was translated into English and published by White Pine Press in 2006. He has garnered numerous literary awards, and is acknowledged as one of the major modern Korean poets. Youngshil Cho has won several grants for her translation of modern Korean poetry books and children's books. Her publications include One Day, Then Another by Kim Kwang-Kyu (White Pine Press, 2013), A Warm Family by Codhill Press (2014), A Lion at Three in the Morning by Nam Jin-Woo (Homa & Sekey Books, 2017), Whisper of Splendor by Chong Hoyn-Jong (Homa & Sekey Books, 2018), and Paper by Shin Dal-Ja (Codhill Press, 2018).