Borderland Roads: The Selected Poems of Ho Kyun
By (Author) Ho Kyun
Translated by Ian Haight
Translated by Ho T'ae-young
White Pine Press
White Pine Press
1st December 2009
United States
Paperback
128
Width 154mm, Height 231mm, Spine 10mm
155g
Ho Kyuns poetry is in the tradition of his master, the incomparable Tu Fu, while remaining fully his own. Writing nine centuries later, Hos poetry strikes many parallelsthe experiences of war and exile and constant struggleand his voice is similarly humane. This is rich and enlightening reading.Sam Hamill
Borderland Roads is a selection of poems from the writer Ho Kyun, one of Koreas literary elite in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The book catalogs the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597the only record of its kind of these events in poetry.
Kyun Ho (1569-1618) was born into a noble family that for generations served Korea and her kings with distinction. Ho's poetry, stylistically unusual in its time, is a poetry of plainspoken witness. Ho lived through the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597, and his poetry is the only record of its kind on these events. Ian Haight was the co-organizer and translator for the UN's global poetry readings held annually in Pusan, Korea from 2002-4. He has been awarded translation grants from the Daesan Foundation, Korea Literary Translation Institute, and Baroboin Buddhist Foundation; in 2003, he was cited for translation excellence by the KLTI. For more information, please visit ianhaight.com. T'ae-yong Ho has been awarded several translation grants from the Daesan Foundation and Korea Literary Translation Institute. Working from the original classical Chinese, his translations of Korean poetry have appeared in Runes, New Orleans Review, and Atlanta Review.