Smiling in an Old Photograph

Author: Kim Ki-taek

Translators: Ed Bok Lee and Yang Eun-Mi

Publisher: Rain Taxi (2021)

"These unflinching poems witness the darkness under the eyelids, the eyes and senses gripped by hungers and South Korean capitalism’s harms. With surgical precision, Kim Ki-taek takes apart that moment of violence writing into a body and insists on the body’s power to write otherwise. These revelations, essential to us all, arrive for the first time in English thanks to Ed Bok Lee and Yang Eun Mi’s lucid translation. Their accomplishment is an invitation to one of South Korea’s most provocative 21st century poets."
—Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, author of Interrogation Room

"What joy to have one of my favorite Korean poets translated into English. Kim Ki-taek's masterful attention brings anxiety, sound, time, and breath into a singular focus. A newborn baby, a poet reflecting on his youth, or an old man walking: these short poems are wise explorations of loss, change, and joy. This is a timeless and universal voice to cherish."
—Lee Herrick, author of Scar and Flower

"The poet’s clairvoyant imagination attempts to observe in detail the subject in a way that is beyond the limits of normal, everyday perception. The poet ‘sees’ the magnetism of inner strength stretched thin and taut in the monotony of everyday life. Therefore, the world becomes a space where unseen, hidden powers contend for supremacy, and the dynamism of halted time is revealed. The power of Kim Ki-taek’s poems to move us lies not in the revelatory nature of enlightenment, but in the renewal of the awareness that digs up the hidden facets of existence."
—Lee Kwang-ho