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Advice from Ko Un
Buy at Indiebound SOME ADVICEby Ko Un (tr. Brother Anthony of Taizé and Lee Sang-Wha) Poemsblock the path for better poems.Poemsblock the path for subsequent poems. Poems, poems, my blue poems! Escape somehow from the history of poetry,from fashions of poetry,from a hundred years of poetic authority. Be born trembling, wild and alone.Read More
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Mexico Books 2008: Installment 2
Ten Thousand Lives, by Ko Un. Introduction by Robert Hass. In Mexico I read this other book by Korean poet and former Buddhist monk Ko Un. It’s a selection of poems from his vast project, Maninbo, or Ten Thousand Lives. After several years as a leader of the resistance movement against the Korean Republic’s military dictatorships in the 1970s, Ko Un was imprisoned four times, enduring torture and extreme deprivation.Read More
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Mexico Books 2008: Installment 1
I’m finally getting around to mentioning some of the books I read in Mexico back in May. Please indulge me. Just thinking about them brings back the thrash and occasional boom of blue green Caribbean waves on that raw sugar sand…. What?: 108 Zen Poems, by Ko Un. Foreword by Allen Ginsberg. Introduction by Thich Nhat Hanh. The Korean poet and former Buddhist monk Ko Un is one of the great masters of the playful insight.Read More