Myung Mi Kim is a Korean-American poet, and you can hear her read poems about some of the various consonants in the Korean language. This is a link from the previously mentioned Factory School link I put up a few days ago. I think she gets the names of a couple of consonants wrong, by the way, but I’ve only listened once. Anyone notice this?
Category: REVIEWS
Stash Of Poetry Audio
We had our first discussion of The Cantos today — spanning Cantos I-III, and while I haven’t time to write about all we discussed today — I’ll try to get to it tomorrow — I think this link from Jason was very much worth sharing. It’s the Factory School’s Poetry and Literature Digital Audio Archive, and not only has it a big collection of Pound audio, but also audio from all kinds of other poets. If you’re into poetry, it’s a link to check out.
Sordello
Okay, six pages in, I think I know why Robert Browning’s Sordello was such a massive, career-destroying failure, and why it was so important for Ezra Pound that he mentioned it in his second Canto.
Poetry Reading in Jeonju
Lime called me this afternoon with some news. A co-worker, Jason, and I had asked her about whether poetry readings of the sort we’re familiar with back in the West happen in Korea. She said she didn’t know of any such venues or regular readings, but said she’d keep her eyes open for us. As part of the local traditional culture festival, there was a reading held at the top of a hill. It featured, according to Lime, some of the major voices in contemporary Korean poetry, all people from Jeollabuk-do. And before I give my honest impressions, I want …
And then went down to the ship…
That’s right, we got us an Ezra Pound study group going. It’s Chullsung, Jason, and me on Monday afternoons spelunking (and then trying to dig out way out of) his Bible-sized book of poems — or, you could say, his pagan-Biblical poem — The Cantos, starting 1:15pm weekly. Next week is Cantos 1-3, including earlier drafts if we can get our hands on ’em. I’m excited. (I think I’ll bring the relevant bit from The Odyssey as well, if I can find it among my books… but I think I left The Odyssey in Canada, and only have The Iliad …
Slipstream (2005): I want my 89 minutes back!
Just after watching the intro to the movie Slipstream, the 2005 film of that name, after all that cool blabbing about time, the following line struck me as so absolutely, painfully wrong: You’ve heard of the World Wide Web? Well, you’re the fly that just got stuck in it. Sorry, but I think by now anyone who hasn’t heard of the World Wide Web probably also isn’t watching time travel bank-heist movies. The line ought to be, “You know the World Wide Web?” or, “This is the World Wide Web,” or something a little less 1993. It was at that …
My Jeonju Sori Festival Writeup
I recently mentioned the Jeonju Sori Festival and how much I was enjoying it, and how I wanted to write about it, but had been asked to write a piece for translation and inclusion in a Korean magazine. I decided to simply write the magazine piece and post it here — for the time being, unless maybe I can submit it somewhere else — in one shot. Some of the people who attended the festival this year had some pretty negative things to say about it, and I can understand some of their disappointments — although the complaints tended to …
Poptrash
Over on the UKMIX forums I found a link to Poptrash, a site built to allow likeminded antifans to bash certain mainstream stars.
A Bit More
I was going to post a longish post fawning over the music I heard at the Jeonju Sori Festival, and my personal reactions, but I was asked today to write a two-page article about it (for translation and publication in a Korean magazine, I think a local thing). Because of this request I’m going to put off writing anything about it until tomorrow or the next day. Meanwhile I’m working on getting that website online for my friends, which should be up in a day or two. But I will say for now that the musicians who stay most strongly …
A Question and A Weird Observation
I’ve got a question: does anyone know whether the Japanese “taiko” drum has a long tradition of Korean performers? Does the drum’s presence in Korean music predate Japanese occupation? How popular is it in Korea today? I went to pick up some tickets for the Sori Festival this week, and stayed around to see the opening night pre-Fest party. (The real Opening Concert is tomorrow night, and since I have a night class, I’ll have to miss it! But I have tickets to a ton of other great shows this week, thanks to the pass I was given for doing …