‘Tingle of Scar, Your Face and My Dumb Love’

Where the nail cutter bit off my skin/ Pink blood spread deep// At first it was a tingle/ Later it was a sting// For a while/ It hurt// Someone must have left late/ (…) You are nowhere but there all the time. (From “You are Nowhere but There All the Time”)

Poet Lee Yun-hak, 43, is always busy writing. There are more than 60 poems in his new poetry collection published after a three-year-long blank. Poet Lee’s point of view, cast on small and minor details, stays fine. The title poem is exemplary. Looking at the blood in a small scar at the end of the finger, he is reminded of the pain of love that he had thought would pass soon but has lasted for so long.

Through the morning I rolled over the floor/ Well-shed 1.5 liters/ Pick up/ A twisted Fanta pet bottle// Your name and face that left me after a laugh/ Your figure from behind escapes my memory. (From “Fanta Pet Bottle”)

Not a small number of poems are on love gone. If he thinks of an old-day love looking at a twisted pet bottle, then it is because the bottle resembles him. The slopping of water in the pet bottle while he waters the roses in a vase is like the lapping of his own mind. This is how the poet catches the pattern of mind from the extremely common scenes of life.

Would you stick on his body and become a tattoo/ Would you offer the wings to his confinement// The white butterfly is still// The rock is covered with dark spots of moss/ A mother’s-heart has bloomed from the crevice of rocks. (From “Spring”)

When you follow the guide by poet Lee Yun-hak and look around with care, you realize that the form of love is everywhere. From a white butterfly on the rock to the crispy wings of a dragonfly (“Why is the Dust Attracted to Water”). He captures the passion, fluttering and the pit-a-pat of love. His poems remind readers of the fact that they are living in a world of lonely but beautiful love.

kimjy@donga.com