Complete front cover of Baek Seok: Poems of the North, translated by Peter N. Liptak, illustrated by Choi Joongwon

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Baek Seok

Name: Baek Seok
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Poems of the North 백석 시 모음집 – 북에서온시들 (한글+영문)

Poet: Baek Seok · Translator: Peter N. Liptak · Artwork: Choi Joongwon

Food, snow, village life and longing. Baek Seok’s poems open a world through everyday things. This illustrated hardcover brings the Korean originals and Peter N. Liptak’s English translations together on facing pages.

Look inside the book ↓

2018 Foreword INDIES · Silver winner
Multicultural · Illustrated bilingual hardcover

$28.95

Hardcover · In stock

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Look inside

The poems in both languages

Korean and English face one another throughout the book, accompanied by restrained blue illustrations rooted in the poems’ landscapes and imagery.

Interior spread from Baek Seok. Select it to view it larger.

From “Rain”

When did the acacia trees spread their round mat of white petals
Where everywhere the reek of fallen rain extends

Choose an edition

More to explore

A world worth returning to

A whole world. In a few lines.

Two languages, face to face

Read the English on its own, follow the Korean, or move between the two. The original is always within reach.

A Korea held in everyday things

Food, snow, animals, village customs and family life carry the poems into a northern world before the peninsula’s division.

Art that shares the page

Choi Joongwon’s blue illustrations leave room for the words, then invite the eye to wander through their landscapes.

Context when you want it

Footnotes, an introduction, a biographical timeline and a list of onomatopoeia give unfamiliar words and places somewhere to land.

Fifteen years following the words

Peter N. Liptak’s translation grew from years of Korean study, research and return to the poems.

Made for slow reading

A 324-page illustrated hardcover for a bedside table, a bookshelf, a classroom or a gift to someone who loves language.

Award

2018 Foreword INDIES
Silver winner

Multicultural (Adult Fiction) · Book of the Year Awards

See the award record ↗

Translation & publication support

Literature Translation Institute of Korea

The edition acknowledges LTI Korea’s support for the translation and publication. That support helped bring Baek Seok’s work to English-language readers.

Reviews & responses

Others have spent time here.

“It’s hard to imagine a better introduction to Baek Seok’s work.”

Peter DabbeneForeword ReviewsRead the review ↗

“Simple celebrations of traditional rural life, tastes, smells, sounds of the countryside dominate the poems of this romantic, solitary figure.”

Brother Anthony of TaizéSogang University · Endorsement in the published edition

“The unique temporal exoticism characterizing the early phase of Baek Seok’s poetry is exquisitely caught in this version.”

Professor Yu JonghoYonsei University · Endorsement in the published edition

“arranged beautifully, with the English translation preceding the Korean”

Yearn Hong ChoiKorean Quarterly

A note from the translator

Why I returned
to these poems.

Peter N. Liptak · 情石 (정석)
Translator & publisher

“When I was first exposed to Baek Seok, I felt an immediate connection to him and his words. This first poem was one of life's small misfortunes and the unrequited love of a wandering mind. This most Korean of Korean poets, his work both palatal and pastoral, who wrote of the objects connected with Korean traditional life inspired me to delve deeper. His intense descriptions were particularly poignant in relation to the backdrop of the Japanese occupation, the loss of Korea's nationhood and with it much of Korea's linguistic freedom and national character.”
“Baek Seok gives us a rare glimpse into the everyday lives of the common people. These people of the Korean peninsula now divided, but sharing a long history of tradition, together hold the heritage that is much overlooked when viewing Asian contributions to world culture. And as such, it is my further hope that this publication may transmit a portion of that literary heritage on to the world community.”

From Peter’s account of the translation project.

Baek Seok · 백석 1912–1996

Born Baek Gi-haeng, Baek Seok made the language of daily life a central material of his poetry. His poems return to food, animals, family and northern landscapes, giving familiar things an extraordinary density of feeling.

He wrote during Japanese colonial rule and remained in the North after Korea’s division. This edition introduces the poet through his work, with a biographical timeline and the Korean originals alongside the English.

More about Baek Seok ↗

The physical book

A book to leave open.

Korean originals, English translations and Choi Joongwon’s blue artwork share the pages of this 324-page hardcover. Read a page, look at the illustration, then return to the words.

ISBN 9781936342099 · Published by Exile Press

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View the hardcover · $28.95 ↗