The sound of a grandfather clock at the end of a dark corridor,
between one and two,
even between eleven and twelve,
it strikes just once.
It is an unexpected awakening, a sterile arousal.
It doesn’t inform us what middle zone
between A o’clock and B o’clock we are passing.
Just the fact you have trodden half of something.
As if everything depends on your decision whether you return or proceed,
the sins committed from now on would be remembered till death.
Jin Eun-young was born in Daejeon, South Korea, in 1970. She graduated from Ewha Womans University with a degree in Philosophy, and later received her PhD (writing a thesis comparing Nietzsche and Nagarjuna). Jin Eun-young made her literary debut in 2000, publishing poems in the spring issue of
Literature and Society. She has since published a number of poetry collections, including
일곱 개의 단어로 된 사전 [A Dictionary of Seven Words], 우리는 매일매일 [We, Day By Day],훔쳐가는 노래 [A Stealing Song] and
시시하다 [Sisihada], and has received the Kim Daljin Literature Award for Young Poets, the Daesan Literature Award, the Modern Literature Award, and the Cheon Sang-byeong Poetry Award. She has written numerous academic books:
Nietzsche, Eternal Return and the Philosophy of Difference; Critique of Pure Reason: Taking Reason to Court; and
The Atopos of Literature, among others. In addition, the poetry anthology
Red Snowflake was published in French by Bruno Ducey Publishing (2016), and the English translation of
We, Day By Day was published by White Pine Press (2018). Jin Eun-young is currently a professor of literary counselling at Korea Counselling Graduate University.
