Category: Translations
“A Chunk of Charcoal” by Ahn Do-hyun
Episode 12 of the K-drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo features a powerful poem about putting others first, from author Ahn Do-hyun’s 2004 collection Lonely High Solitary (외롭고 높고 쓸쓸한). I couldn’t get the powerful imagery off my mind: in Korea even today, people fight off the winter cold with charcoal briquettes.…
“Rainy Day” by Mah Chonggi
“Calling to the Dead” by Kim Sowol
Like many folks around the world, I was introduced to the poetry of Kim Sowol—who published a single book of poems, Azaleas, before dying at age thirty-two—through the show The King: Eternal Monarch. In episode three, the eponymous ruler of alternate Earth Kingdom of Corea pulls Azaleas from a shelf…
“The Gatekeeper” by Kim Haengsoon
One of the many things I love about watching K-drama is all the wonderful poetry I’ve been introduced to. During episode 10 of Hometown Cha Cha Cha, male protagonist Hong Ban-jang reads the poem “The Gatekeeper” from the collection Portrait of Echoes by Kim Haengsook (so that female protagonist Yoon…
“The Physics of Love” by Kim In-yook
“Desperation” by Senryū
“Longing for the Divine” by Matsuo Bashō
In Memory of Tlatelolco
Rosario Castellanos was an influential Mexican poet who wrote this piece after the government massacre of students and other protesters in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City. The poem made its way into Elena Poniatowska’s book on the massacre. The third stanza was…
The Birth of Huitzilopochtli
Information on original text. The manuscript known as the Florentine Codex is a three-volume copy of a Nahuatl-Spanish bilingual work titled Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España housed in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana library in Florence. The 2400-page ethnography is the result of decades of research conducted by…
“A Chunk of Charcoal” by Ahn Do-hyun

Episode 12 of the K-drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo features a powerful poem about putting others first, from author Ahn Do-hyun’s 2004 collection Lonely High Solitary (외롭고 높고 쓸쓸한). I couldn’t get the powerful imagery off my mind: in Korea even today, people fight off the winter cold with charcoal briquettes.…
“Rainy Day” by Mah Chonggi
“Calling to the Dead” by Kim Sowol

Like many folks around the world, I was introduced to the poetry of Kim Sowol—who published a single book of poems, Azaleas, before dying at age thirty-two—through the show The King: Eternal Monarch. In episode three, the eponymous ruler of alternate Earth Kingdom of Corea pulls Azaleas from a shelf…
“The Gatekeeper” by Kim Haengsoon

One of the many things I love about watching K-drama is all the wonderful poetry I’ve been introduced to. During episode 10 of Hometown Cha Cha Cha, male protagonist Hong Ban-jang reads the poem “The Gatekeeper” from the collection Portrait of Echoes by Kim Haengsook (so that female protagonist Yoon…
“The Physics of Love” by Kim In-yook
“Desperation” by Senryū
“Longing for the Divine” by Matsuo Bashō
In Memory of Tlatelolco

Rosario Castellanos was an influential Mexican poet who wrote this piece after the government massacre of students and other protesters in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City. The poem made its way into Elena Poniatowska’s book on the massacre. The third stanza was…
The Birth of Huitzilopochtli

Information on original text. The manuscript known as the Florentine Codex is a three-volume copy of a Nahuatl-Spanish bilingual work titled Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España housed in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana library in Florence. The 2400-page ethnography is the result of decades of research conducted by…