Autobiography of Death E-Book

Kim Hyesoon

• Herausgeber: And Other Stories
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 92

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

'I thought to myself that I needed to sing death, perform a rite for death, write death, then bid farewell to it.' The title section of Kim Hyesoon's visceral Autobiography of Death consists of forty-nine poems, each poem representing a single day during which the spirit roams after death before it enters the cycle of reincarnation.

Leseprobe

First published in the UK in 2025 by And Other Stories

Sheffield – London – New York

www.andotherstories.org

Copyright © 2016 by Kim Hyesoon

Translation copyright © 2018 by Don Mee Choi

Published by arrangement with New Directions Books, New York.

Originally published by Munhaksilhumsil in 2016.

All rights reserved. The rights of Kim Hyesoon to be identified as the author of this work and of Don Mee Choi to be identified as the translator of this work have been asserted.

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

ISBN: 9781916751286

eBook ISBN: 9781916751293

Typesetter: Tetragon, London; Series Cover Design: Elisa vonRandow, Alles Blau Studio, Brazil, after a concept by And OtherStories; Illustrations: Fi Jae Lee; Author Photo: Jung Melmel.

And Other Stories books are printed and bound in the UK on FSC-certified paper by the CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

EU GPSR Authorised Representative

LOGOS EUROPE, 9 rue Nicolas Poussin, 17000, LA ROCHELLE, France

e-mail: [email protected]

And Other Stories gratefully acknowledge that our work is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

Contents

CommuteDAY ONE

CalendarDAY TWO

PhotographDAY THREE

Lean on the WaterDAY FOUR

Midnight SunDAY FIVE

After You’re GoneDAY SIX

TibetDAY SEVEN

OrphanDAY EIGHT

Everyday Everyday EverydayDAY NINE

NamesakeDAY TEN

ButterflyDAY ELEVEN

Lunar EclipseDAY TWELVE

Gravel SkirtDAY THIRTEEN

NestDAY FOURTEEN

Death’s Magic-Compressed DistanceDAY FIFTEEN

Naked BodyDAY SIXTEEN

A GraveDAY SEVENTEEN

Black Fishnet GlovesDAY EIGHTEEN

Winter’s SmileDAY NINETEEN

I Want to Go to the IslandDAY TWENTY

SmellDAY TWENTY-ONE

Seoul, Book of the DeadDAY TWENTY-TWO

Lack of AirDAY TWENTY-THREE

AutopsyDAY TWENTY-FOUR

Every DayDAY TWENTY-FIVE

Mommy of DeathDAY TWENTY-SIX

a e i o uDAY TWENTY-SEVEN

AlreadyDAY TWENTY-EIGHT

Dinner MenuDAY TWENTY-NINE

A GiftDAY THIRTY

HiccupsDAY THIRTY-ONE

A LieDAY THIRTY-TWO

By the River of FormalinDAY THIRTY-THREE

Death SwarmswarmsDAY THIRTY-FOUR

Lowering the CoffinDAY THIRTY-FIVE

Lord NoDAY THIRTY-SIX

A LullabyDAY THIRTY-SEVEN

A Crow Flew Over the Cuckoo’s NestDAY THIRTY-EIGHT

Icicle GlassesDAY THIRTY-NINE

Such Painful HallucinationDAY FORTY

Marine Blue FeathersDAY FORTY-ONE

NameDAY FORTY-TWO

A FaceDAY FORTY-THREE

A DollDAY FORTY-FOUR

UnderworldDAY FORTY-FIVE

AsphyxiationDAY FORTY-SIX

Heart’s ExileDAY FORTY-SEVEN

Moon MaskDAY FORTY-EIGHT

Don’tDAY FORTY-NINE

Face of Rhythm

An Interview

Translator’s Note

Autobiography of Death

Commute

DAY ONE

On the subway your eyes roll up once. That’s eternity.

The rolled-up eyes eternally magnified.

You must have bounced out of the train. It seems that you’re dying.

Even though you’re dying, you think. Even though you’re dying, you listen.

Oh what’s wrong with this woman? People. Passing by.

You’re a piece of discarded trash. Garbage to be ignored.

As soon as the train leaves, an old man comes over.

He discreetly inserts black fingernails inside your pants.

A moment later he steals your handbag.

Two middle schoolers come over. They rummage around in your pockets.

They kick. Camera shutters click.

Your funeral photo is on the boys’ cell phones.

You watch the panorama unfold in front of you like the dead normally do.

Your gaze directed outward now departs for the vast space inside you.

Death is something that storms in from the outside. The universe inside is

bigger.

It’s deep. Soon you float up inside it.

She’s stretched out over there. Like a pair of discarded pants.

When you pull up the left leg, the right leg of your pants runs faraway,

your unsewn clothes, your zipperless clothes swirl around. At the

corner of the subway of your morning commute.

Pitiful. At one point the woman was embraced as bones clasp marrow,

embraced as bra cups breasts.

Black hair, coming and going, clutches. Your single outfit.

A dinosaur is about to come out of the woman’s body.

She opens her eyes wide. But there’s no exit left.

The woman’s dead. Turned off like the night sun.

Now the woman’s spoon can be discarded.

Now the woman’s shadow can be folded.

Now the woman’s shoes can be removed.

You run away from yourself. Like a bird far from its shadow.

You decide to escape the misfortune of living with that woman.

You shout, I don’t have any feeling whatsoever for that woman!

But you roll your eyes the way the woman did when she was alive

and continue on your way to work as before. You go without your body.

Will I get to work on time? You head toward the life you won’t be living.

Calendar

DAY TWO

A white rabbit dies and becomes a red rabbit.

It bleeds even after it’s dead.

Soon the red rabbit becomes a black rabbit.

It rots even after it’s dead.

Because it’s dead, it can become big or small at will.

When it’s huge, it’s like a cloud, and when it’s tiny, it’s like an ant.

You try shoving an ant rabbit into your ear.

The ant rabbit eats everything in sight, the wide grass field inside your ear,

then it gives birth to two bunnies bigger than a storm cloud.

Your ears are buzzing. Every sound is buzzing. Your ear is dying. A rabbit is

dying.

Sometimes a dead rabbit reincarnates as a bloodied menstrual pad.

Occasionally you pull out a dead rabbit from your panties.

Every month you pull out a dead rabbit and hang it on the wall.

On the wall you hang a crying that smells like rabbits’ ears.

Photograph

DAY THREE

How’s your doll?

How’s your doll’s health?

You speak into your doll’s ears, It’s a secret! Shut your mouth for life!

As you pluck out your doll’s eyes, You liked it too, didn’t you? That’s it, isn’t

it?

As you cut off your doll’s hair, Die you filthy bitch!

As you set your doll on fire, You’ve forgotten about your past life forever,

haven’t you?

When you leave the house, your doll stays behind

When you leave the house, your doll comes back to life

When you leave the house, your doll opens the window and looks out

When you leave the house, your doll leaves the house

When you leave the house, your doll pretends it’s an orphan

That thing, it says it can’t eat in front of people for some reason

That thing, it never dies

That empty thing

That thing worships your ghost in its pupils

Doll is walking over there, its armless arms come out then go back in

Its legless legs come out then go back in

like someone who’s left her legs behind on her bed

Crumpled paper from its legs scatter

Your doll walks

Your doll talks

Drops its eyes inside itself

Cries till its neck turns all the way around

It may come back to life when you die

Anyhow you can no longer make your doll stand

Anyhow you can no longer make your doll walk

Anyhow you can no longer make your doll laugh

You are now disconnected from your doll

You write a letter

Dear Doll: You still need someone to put you to bed every night and close

your eyes

Lean on the Water

DAY FOUR

Lean your body on the water and cling to it

Can’t bear it any longer. I twist my body

holding on to the fingers of water and

wear a coat woven with water’s hair

I crouch and cover my face

Let’s be slant together

Let’s fall embracing each other

After I jump off

it’ll be your turn to jump

When I throw down the fishing line

please bite on the hook and bob up

I’ll do the same next time

Plead to

the water that talks to itself more than you do

It babbles on when it’s drunk

so I take the rain home

Water pours in through the window

You’re about to lean

on it

but the water

leans on you even more

Midnight Sun

DAY FIVE

A letter arrives from a place where your reply can’t be sent

That you’re already here

That you’ve already left you

A shimmering letter arrives from the hole that knows everything

Like the brain that sees all too clearly after death, a bright letter arrives

Like the days before you were born, a widely wide letter without yesterday

or tomorrow arrives

Soft chiming of bells from a carriage made of light

Giggles of a girl in pants made of light, knocking on the nightless world

The last train runs above ground

the world where all the trains on the platform light up at once and silently

forget about you

You can’t go, for you are footless, but the children of your childhood are

already there

A letter arrives from that bright hole where not even a reply in black can be

sent

where your children age in front of you

from that place where you departed to, to be reincarnated

A letter arrives, written in ink of brightly bright light

from that place where you’ve never encountered darkness

an enormously enormous letter arrives

a brilliant light a newborn greets for the first time

After You’re Gone

DAY SIX

After you’ve gone don’t go, don’t

After you’ve come don’t come, don’t

When you depart, they close your eyes, put your hands together and cry don’t go, don’t go

But when you say open the door, open the door, they say don’t come, don’t come

They glue a paper doll onto a bamboo stick and say don’t come, don’t come

They throw your clothes into the fire and say don’t come, don’t come

That’s why you’re footless

wingless

yet all you do is fly

unable to land

You’re visible even when you hide

You know everything even without a brain

You feel so cold

even without a body

That’s why this morning the nightgown hiding under the bed

is sobbing quietly to itself

Water collects in your coffin

You’ve already left the coffin

Your head’s imprint on the moon pillow

Your body’s imprint on the cloud blanket

So after you’ve gone don’t go, don’t

So after you’ve come don’t come, don’t

Tibet

DAY SEVEN

Your expression dissipates at night

Your name dissipates at night

You bark kung kung at your own name that’s running away

like a dog barking at the moon

Now you head out to the open field where only the present unfolds

Hence fatigue is called the nameless horizon!

Anxiety is called the weightless, boundless width!

Misfortune is called the beyond the timberline that no one looks back at!

Fear is called the snowfield where you can catch a glimpse of the

expressionless Yeti!

Sorrow is called the infinite sky where neither being nor nonbeing exists!

(The universe is teeming with five twin siblings!)

kung

kung

kung

kung

kung

Orphan

DAY EIGHT

Not God, you’re a square

You grow up calling death Mommy

You drink death juice, counting the grains of death

You’re the square’s servant

You’re the square’s bastard

You’re the square’s bellboy