Net soos dit die geval is met Tomaž Šalamun, is dit haas onmoontlik om tussen die rykdom van die Suid-Koreaanse digter Ko Un se beskikbare werke in Engelse vertaling te kies; ook vanweë sy statuur en reputasie as geoormerkte Nobel-pryswenner. En natuurlik pragtig deur die onderskeie uitgewers geproduseer.
Twee publikasies is egter The Three Way Tavern – Selected Poems (wat in 2006 by California University Press verskyn het) en dan veral This Side of Time wat verlede jaar deur White Pine Press uitgegee is. Eersgenoemde is ‘n meer omvattende bloemlesing, met Gary Snyder se oorsigartikel as ‘n besonderse pluspunt. Daarenteen versamel This Side of Time in hoofsaak Ko Un se korter verse; verse propvol resonansie en onmiskenbaar met ‘n kragtige Oosterse aanslag. Vreemde, eiesoortige akwarelverse inderdaad …
Volgens die uitgewer se aankondiging op hul webtuiste, die volgende: “This Side of Time is a new volume of translations of Ko Un’ short poems drawn from several of his collections in Korean and is a companion to The Three Way Tavern: Selected Poems also translated by Clare You and Richard Silberg. Ko Un is one of the most respected poets in Korea and has been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is a prolific author with over 100 volumes of poetry as well as many volumes of fiction and non-fiction in his native Korean. His work had been widely translated into many languages and he has a number of books in English translation including: Beyond Self, Ten Thousand Lives, Songs for Tomorrow, and Little Pilgrim. He was imprisoned several times and lived for a decade as a Zen Monk before returning the secular world.”
Aanbevelings wat ek kon opspoor, is die volgende:
“Ko Un’s poems evoke the open creativity and fluidity of nature, and funny turns and twists of Mind. Mind is sometimes registered in Buddhist terms — Buddhist practice being part of Ko Un’s background. Ko Un writes spare, short-line lyrics direct to the point, but often intricate in both wit and meaning. Ko Un has now traveled worldwide and is not only a major spokesman for all Korean culture, but a voice for Planet Earth Watershed as well.” (Gary Snyder)
“Ko Un is a crucial poet for the twenty-first century, and this is an enormously fresh and vivid translation.” (Robert Hass)
“No one has done more for what is coming gradually but ever more clearly to be recognized as Korea’s literature of the twenty-first century.” (David McCann, Direkteur van die Instituut vir Koreaanse Studies by Harvard Universiteit)
Die boekbesonderhede is soos volg:
[ISBN: 9781935210320, Sagteband, 100 ble., White Pine Press, R208.00]
As verdere leestoegif plaas ek een van Ko Un se vroeëre gedigte.
***
Untitled
One day I took a pebble from
an East Sea beach and put it in my pocket
but it jumped back out, shrieking.
As it hurtled off into the distance,
it failed to make the slightest sound.
It had no idea of the strong emotions I was longing for.
Out at sea are flocks of seagulls
ready to peck out and swallow facile words.
© Ko Un (Vertaal deur Brother Anthony of Taizé, Young-moo Kim en Gary Gach)