Shin Hae-uk
Stop
Motion
If you want to think,
think of home.
The walls blur together then
SSSTOP,
andmu’ROCK! mu’ROCK!—
a home pops up inside them,
and in those thoughts,
there I am.
Yet in my thoughts,
there’s something drawing ever closer.
Bit by bit—
“We need one more person in this house.”
But my home—
I look back, and
once more SSSTOP.
If home came crumbling down inside my thoughts:
did I become myself, then get born?
Or was I born before I was really me?
translated from the Korean by Spencer Lee Lenfield
Shin Hae-uk is the author of five volumes of poetry, including Biologicity (2006), in which "Stop Motion" is appears, and most recently, Nature's Edge and Natural History (2024). She has also written two novels and two essay collections. Shin holds a doctorate in Korean literature from Korea University and currently teaches creative writing in Seoul. If you want to think,
think of home.
The walls blur together then
SSSTOP,
andmu’ROCK! mu’ROCK!—
a home pops up inside them,
and in those thoughts,
there I am.
Yet in my thoughts,
there’s something drawing ever closer.
Bit by bit—
“We need one more person in this house.”
But my home—
I look back, and
once more SSSTOP.
If home came crumbling down inside my thoughts:
did I become myself, then get born?
Or was I born before I was really me?
translated from the Korean by Spencer Lee Lenfield
Spencer Lee-Lenfield's translations, chiefly from Korean to English, have appeared in publications including Kenyon Review, Guernica, New England Review, Poetry Northwest, Colorado Review, Asymptote, and The Dial. Lee-Lenfield is an assistant professor of comparative literature at Harvard University.