Poems from Someday I'll Be Sitting in a Dingy Bar

Poetry. Asian Studies. Translated from the Korean by Scott Swaner and Young-Jun Lee. Hwang Jiwoo's poems are built of odd juxtapositions and comparisons, like a mother's hospital crisis and "the Verona World Cup," its happily hopping soccer ball; "the waning day, the black cow moaning inside the gate"; "Mormon missionaries [who] enter the subway like penguins"; acacias waving "their white handkerchiefs." Whatever is metaphysical in Hwang's poems is also intensely physical, like the dingy bar alluded to in the title. Young-Jun Lee and the late Scott Swaner have performed deft and conversational translations of this provocative work. Hwang Jiwoo was born in 1952 in Haenam, South Korea. As a student, he studied aesthetics at Seoul National University and philosophy at Sogang University. After beginning his poetic career in 1980, he immediately became a leading poet in an "age of poetry" that spanned the 1970s and 80s in Korea. Despite being arrested several times by the military government for dissident activities, Hwang published several collections of poetry, including EVEN BIRDS LEAVE THE WORLD and The Lotus Blossom in the Crab's Eye. More recent books of Hwang's poetry include Sea Gleaming As Night Falls and SOMEDAY I'LL BE SITTING IN A DINGY BAR. He has also published a drama, May Bride, describing the 1980 Kwangju massacre. His many literary awards include the Kim Suyong Literary Award, the Hyundae Literary Award, the Sowol Poetry Award, and the Daesan Literary Award. After South Korea was democratized, he began teaching at a number of universities, as well as exhibiting his work as a sculptor. He is currently president of Korea's National University for the Arts.