The Hell of That Star
Published on 3. February 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
108 pages
978-0-8195-0218-6 (ISBN)
Description
Singular poetry made through censorship, elusion, and language renewal_x000D_
_x000D_
The astonishing poetry collection The Hell of That Star enlivens the horror of Korean life under U.S.-backed authoritarianism. Poems of blows and vomit, births and coffins alternate blithe confidence and trembling terror. When slapped seven times by a government censor, Kim responded with defiant poems. The death of language becomes a death of the writer; within death, Kim finds new life in fragmentation and reorientation. This singular volume provides a wild and rigorous study of the words of the nation-state and the self, as well as the deprivations, detainments, and surprises in between. In evading censorship, Kim's poems question, twist, and transmute; language is a site where the personal and political meet to escape containment, emptiness, and domestication. The book includes an essay by the author, with an introduction and notes by the translator._x000D_
_x000D_
[sample poem]_x000D_
_x000D_
The tough after all_x000D_
we still remain_x000D_
and just in gathering it is lovingly_x000D_
even while building each other's tombs_x000D_
while patting each other's backs_x000D_
_x000D_
But when each bird turns around_x000D_
their arms flung! open_x000D_
embracing tightly what_x000D_
they do not even recognize as their grave_x000D_
and they hug and hold harder and harder_x000D_
stretching four limbs out over the laid sleeping mat and blanket_x000D_
saying I love you I love you even in their sleep_x000D_
In this world from which crying birds have disappeared_x000D_
only I am left
_x000D_
The astonishing poetry collection The Hell of That Star enlivens the horror of Korean life under U.S.-backed authoritarianism. Poems of blows and vomit, births and coffins alternate blithe confidence and trembling terror. When slapped seven times by a government censor, Kim responded with defiant poems. The death of language becomes a death of the writer; within death, Kim finds new life in fragmentation and reorientation. This singular volume provides a wild and rigorous study of the words of the nation-state and the self, as well as the deprivations, detainments, and surprises in between. In evading censorship, Kim's poems question, twist, and transmute; language is a site where the personal and political meet to escape containment, emptiness, and domestication. The book includes an essay by the author, with an introduction and notes by the translator._x000D_
_x000D_
[sample poem]_x000D_
_x000D_
The tough after all_x000D_
we still remain_x000D_
and just in gathering it is lovingly_x000D_
even while building each other's tombs_x000D_
while patting each other's backs_x000D_
_x000D_
But when each bird turns around_x000D_
their arms flung! open_x000D_
embracing tightly what_x000D_
they do not even recognize as their grave_x000D_
and they hug and hold harder and harder_x000D_
stretching four limbs out over the laid sleeping mat and blanket_x000D_
saying I love you I love you even in their sleep_x000D_
In this world from which crying birds have disappeared_x000D_
only I am left
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 9 mm
Weight
172 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8195-0218-6 (9780819502186)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Kim Hyesoon
The Hell of That Star
E-Book
02/2026
Wesleyan University Press
€13.49
Available for download
Persons
KIM HYESOON has published fourteen Korean poetry collections and been translated into several languages. A winner of the Midang, Griffin, and Cikada poetry prizes, she lives in Seoul where she was a creative writing professor at the Seoul Institute of the Arts. CINDY JUYOUNG OK is the author of Ward Toward from the Yale Series of Younger Poets (2024).
Content
Introduction
Foreword: Midsness by Cindy Juyoung Ok
I.
That Place 1
That Place 2
That Place 3
That Place 4
That Place 5
That Place 6
Democracy on the Edges of Dong-gu
The Burning Country Frozen Over
The American Store on Some Day in Some Month
The Tears of the Dead
Pupil
Flight
Owl
The Ringing of That Day
A Flower That Refuses to Be Poetry
Salt
Big Eyes
The Boy Who Went Alone
Visible Even with Eye Patches on Both Eyes
The History of Food
Map
Through Absence More Than Presence
Back to the Past
II.
Not Even Knowing He is Dead
A Corpse Heavier Than the Whole World
Oh Infectious Diseases
I Have to Go to the Mountain
In Front of the Round Wall
Harvest
Every Day I Rise like Clear Glass
After All the Birds Have Gone
Comic Ventriloquist
Madame Sun Eating Van Gogh Eating
Afterword: Voice Poetics by Kim Hyesoon
Acknowledgements
Foreword: Midsness by Cindy Juyoung Ok
I.
That Place 1
That Place 2
That Place 3
That Place 4
That Place 5
That Place 6
Democracy on the Edges of Dong-gu
The Burning Country Frozen Over
The American Store on Some Day in Some Month
The Tears of the Dead
Pupil
Flight
Owl
The Ringing of That Day
A Flower That Refuses to Be Poetry
Salt
Big Eyes
The Boy Who Went Alone
Visible Even with Eye Patches on Both Eyes
The History of Food
Map
Through Absence More Than Presence
Back to the Past
II.
Not Even Knowing He is Dead
A Corpse Heavier Than the Whole World
Oh Infectious Diseases
I Have to Go to the Mountain
In Front of the Round Wall
Harvest
Every Day I Rise like Clear Glass
After All the Birds Have Gone
Comic Ventriloquist
Madame Sun Eating Van Gogh Eating
Afterword: Voice Poetics by Kim Hyesoon
Acknowledgements