Today's Morning Vocabulary - by Heekyung Yoo (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Born in 1980, Yoo Heekyung is the author of several collections of poetry and prose that query subjects such as photography, poetry, stories, presence and absence, and clouds. He is also the owner of Wit N Cynical, a poetry bookstore and project space in Seoul. Yoo's publications include the essay collection Photography and Poetry (Achimdal Books, 2024) and the poetry collection Winter Night Rabbit Worries (Hyundae Munhak, 2023). Yoo is a recipient of Today's Young Artist Award (2023) from the South Korean Ministry of Culture, the Hyundae Munhak Literary Award (Contemporary Literature Award, 2020), and the Gosan New Writer Award (2019). He studied poetry under Kim Hyesoon (Autobiography of Death trans. by Don Mee Choi).

Stine An is a poet and translator based in New York City. She received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant and an NEA Translation Fellowship for her translations of Yoo Heekyung. Her work has appeared in Best Literary Translations 2024, Best American Experimental Writing 2018, Words Without Borders, Poem-a-Day, World Literature Today, Poetry Daily, Asymptote, The Southern Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University and a BA in Literature from Harvard College. Her debut poetry collection, B-Dragon Suite, is a winner of the 2023 Nightboat Poetry Prize.