Most of the time, ears, eyes, mouth, and nose exist as they like,
but today they come back to their own places for me.
However I’ve never learned how to arrange them.
I am becoming myself
I would like to
love myself
but from where on earth does this awkward hour come?
Gradually, I get mad at the smell of the newly-cooked rice.
My life seems to last longer than I do.
SHIN Hae Wook (b. 1974) was born in Chooncheon. She studied Korean Literature at Hanlim University and the Graduate School of Korea University. She made her literary debut in 1998 and her poetry books include A Brief Arrangement (2005) and The Nature of Life (2009). In her second poetry book The Nature of Life, the poet focuses on “I-myself,” laying the gaps between I and the real. According to the poet, she tries to focus on the world of a side glance without taking her eyes off it. Drawing a weird, distorted portrait of our age, the poet is creating a world of minute silence written in the blank page between black letters.
