Jae Kim
Photo by Jenny Wu
Bio
Jae Kim is a writer, translator, and PhD student in comparative literature at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches creative writing and literary translation. Winner of the Words Without Borders and Academy of American Poets' Poems-in-Translation Contest, his writings and translations have appeared most recently in LA Review of Books, Kenyon Review, Poetry Review, Guernica, NOON, Conjunctions, Action Books' Poetry in Action series, Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture, and Four Quartets: Poetry in the Pandemic.
Project Description
To support the translation from the Korean of selected poems by South Korean poet Lee Young-ju. Lee (b. 1974) has published four poetry collections and is the recipient of the Arts Council of Korea's literature and creative writing grant and the Creative Award Fellowship from the Seoul Foundation for the Arts and Culture. This project will focus on Lee's prose poems, which take on a more conversational tone and are driven by narrative. Lee’s poetry investigates relationships—between mother and daughter, lover and ex-lover, friends, and members of a larger group—and ventures into themes of youth, youthfulness, womanhood, and the speaker's uncertain foothold in the world. This will be the first full-length collection of Lee's work in English.
“Pillow” was the working title for this project, which is now titled Cold Candies. Somewhere between the quietly evocative image of a pillow and the saccharine strangeness of cold candies lies Lee Young-ju’s aesthetic. For example, in “Mama’s Marmalade,” someone’s being turned into marmalade, and someone outside the marmalade jar sheds tears into the jar; in “A Girl and the Moon,” a girl hangs upside down on a pull-up bar and pleads with her mother to let her down. The way Lee Young-ju weaves together these haunting images, interlacing different layers to spark an otherworldly dialogue, first struck me a few years ago when I was reading a Korean literary webzine (Munjang) and has since become an integral part of my life and my writing. I’m a deliberative reader and a compulsive editor, and the fellowship offers me the time and support needed to pursue this project. I’m very grateful to the readers for this award for the encouragement. It’s heartening to see Lee’s and my work being loved and appreciated, and I’m excited to be able to promote the work through the fellowship.