Cindy Juyoung Ok

Jul 8, 2024 | theparisreview.org | Kim Hyesoon |Cindy Juyoung Ok

By Kim Hyesoon and Cindy Juyoung Ok July 8, 2024 For our series Making of a Poem, we’re asking poets and translators to dissect the poems they’ve published in our pages. Kim Hyesoon’s poem “Person Walking Backward,” translated by Cindy Juyoung Ok, appears in our new Summer issue, no. 248. Here, we asked Kim and Ok to reflect on their work. 1. Kim HyesoonHow did this poem start for you? Was it with an image, an idea, a phrase, or something else?

Jun 27, 2024 | therumpus.net | Cindy Juyoung Ok

***Author photograph courtesy of Cindy Juyoung Ok

Jun 18, 2024 | theparisreview.org | Kim Hyesoon |Cindy Juyoung Ok

In 1970 a novel by an unknown Albanian writer took literary Paris by storm. The General of the Dead Army was the story of an Italian general who goes back to Albania after the Second World War to find the bodies of the Italian soldiers killed there and take them back to Italy for burial. It was hailed as a masterpiece and its author was invited to France, where he was welcomed by French intellectuals as an original and powerful voice from behind the Iron Curtain.

Apr 6, 2024 | muse.jhu.edu | Kim Hyesoon |Cindy Juyoung Ok

Wearing a black hat andcarrying a black cane andfluttering the tail of a black tuxedoas though conducting a funeral Covering and covering myselfI pull down my cuffs Like a doll popping suddenly out the stomach,there is a timefor curse words to be spat like seeds If I cover the doll's mouthmy mouth is blocked andthere is a time whendeath bursts from the stomach without warninglike held-back laughter When I take my black gloves off and put on my black hat and turn around to go—such an end...

Mar 5, 2024 | poetryfoundation.org | Cindy Juyoung Ok |Leonora Simonovis

By Cindy Juyoung Ok “When it comes to survival there is no right // way but there’s no wrong way either,” writes Cindy Juyoung Ok in her debut poetry collection, Ward Toward. With a candor bolstered by curiosity and experimentation, the author weaves experiences of isolation and dislocation (both physical and psychological) into her poems, while maintaining an awareness of the inadequacy of language to capture or describe reality.