Heo Nanseolheon
Translated from Old Korean by Suphil Lee Park

EIGHT LINES, ELATED

How long you must have shivered in shade here
Foxglove Tree, born and raised in the sunbelt
Lucky to have met a master craftsman
Who sculpted you into a geomungo
Once whole, you dared play this old, old song
Whose notes no one in the world understood
I suppose, dear, this is why that old song
Of Gwangneungsan was soon to peter out

HEO NANSEOLHEON (1563–1589) was a Korean painter and poet of the mid-Joseon dynasty.

SUPHIL LEE PARK (수필 리 박 / 秀筆 李 朴) is the author of the poetry collection Present Tense Complex, winner of the Marystina Santiestevan Prize (Conduit Books & Ephemera, 2021), and a poetry chapbook, Still Life (Factory Hollow Press), selected by Ilya Kaminsky for the 2022 Tomaž Šalamun Prize. Born and raised in South Korea, she holds a BA in English from NYU and an MFA in Poetry from the University of Texas at Austin. Her translations of Korean poems appear in Cincinnati Review, the Los Angeles Review, and New England Review.