Black Ocean :: Undercurrents

Undercurrents is a space for vital, searching nonfiction—lyric essays, manifestos, poetics, and critical meditations that push the boundaries of thought and form. Engaging deeply with poetry, literature, and the philosophies of art and aesthetics, these works are written as if in motion, where inquiry is urgent and ideas evolve in real time. Blending analysis and artistry, they invite readers into new ways of seeing, thinking, and being.

Black Ocean :: Moon Country

The Moon Country Korean Poetry Series publishes new English translations of contemporary Korean poetry by both mid-career and up-and-coming poets who debuted after the IMF crisis. By introducing work which comes out of our shared milieu, this series not only aims to widen the field of contemporary Korean poetry available in English translation, but also to challenge orientalist, neo-colonial, and national literature discourses. Our hope is that readers will inhabit these books as bodies of experience rather than view them as objects of knowledge, that they will allow themselves to be altered by them, and emerge from the page with eyes that seem to see “a world that belongs to another star.”*  Collections by the poets Kim Min Jeong, Lim Solah, Moon Bo Young, and Lee Young Ju are forthcoming.

 *From the poem “Moon Country Mischief” by Kim Soo-young