listening
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The Korean word for “hearing” is a homonym for the word “possessed,” as in possessed by a ghost or spirit; a homonym for “visiting” or “dropping in” at your own or somebody else’s house; and a homonym for “holding” something in your hand. So the same word is used for actions involved with the ear, ghost, house, and object. Which is to say, we hear things as if we are possessed by a ghost, then we hold something in our hands and let go of it as we enter then exit somebody’s house. While I was writing these poems, I was probably possessed by a ghost, listening to death, then I held death in my hand and entered the house of death. In Berlin, the angels in ‘Wings of Desire’ do the “hearing,” and in Seoul, it’s the ears within poetry. Kim Hyesoon (김혜순) in an interview with Don Mee Choi, 5 December 2017, on Autobiography of Death <죽음의 자서전> (via vfollia)
[via “Alive On All Channels”]
