Today’s Morning Vocabulary

The South Korean poet and playwright explores loneliness, alienation, and flashes of togetherness, creating a world that his translator calls ＂overcast, yet playful.＂

Yoo writes poems that invite readers to reflect upon daily sorrows, while also illuminating single moments full of strange and arresting images that suggest the passage of time--a hardened piece of bread, a train about to arrive, a crumpled piece of paper. This debut collection in English chronicles contemporary life in a minor key where loneliness and existential ghosts thread the pieces. But Yoo’s title also points to his fascination with language, and how each day offers chances to understand new vocabularies and new meanings--of words, of living.

Yoo Heekyung is an acclaimed younger South Korean poet and playwright, who also runs a series of poetry bookstores and project spaces in Seoul called ＂wit n cynical.＂ He is the author of several collections, and in 2019 was awarded the Hyundae Munhak Sang (Contemporary Literature Award) for his poetry.

Translator Stine Su Yon An is a poet and translator based in New York City. She received a PEN/Heim Translation Award for her translations of Yoo Heekyung. Her work has appeared in Electric Literature, Black Warrior Review, Waxwing, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in literary arts from Brown University. Stine An is also a standup comedian.