Blooming, Bloomed, Withered by Gene Png
A piece about wanting life and nature’s beauty to be endless.
First published in The Hyacinth Review on 7 May 2022. The original Korean poem 필 꽃 핀 꽃 진 꽃 is from 제주에서 혼자 살고 술은 약해요, or I Live in Jeju and Can’t Hold My Drink (2020), by Lee Wonha.
From the translator:
Lee Wonha’s poetry found me when I was going through a bad slump. Her writing was refreshing—light and humorous whilst still vulnerable and unapologetically honest. The poet once confessed she never felt an affinity with nature until she moved to Jeju seeking respite from an unrequited love. Through her poems, we follow along as she discovers her relationship with nature. We read about how pretty flowers irk her, and how she seeks comfort in fields. As her translator, it’s exciting to see Jeju’s beauty from her point of view. Her uniquely humorous and heart-wrenching perspective is what I hope to share with readers.
Because I was born in spring, I thought that I’d like to live in a place where it’s always spring. I moved to an island where flowers bloom throughout the year, a flower pot in the middle of the sea. I first lived in a house beside the hydrangeas. Then, when the time came, I found myself beside hibiscuses, then camellias, and then reeds, beside hues of orange, in between waves. In a place where flowers were always in bloom, I thought that it would always be spring, but things melted and it was oddly refreshing. Once or twice now, after the freezing cold, I’ve felt the rush of warmth. When I opened the refrigerator, looking for something to eat, I thought about things that have withered before catching myself. I ate as if I’d fallen into a flower that has yet to bloom and felt a breathtaking safety that only lasted a while. My fullness slid from atop the flower that has bloomed. To walk it off, I left to throw out some flowers that have withered. It was only when I returned that I finally realized.
Gene Png is a literary translator and illustrator from Singapore, currently based in Seoul. She attended the regular program at LTI Korea and is the 2022–23 National Centre for Writing Korean prose mentee. She was recently awarded the grand prize in poetry at the 53rd Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards.
Did you enjoy this piece? If you’d like to send the author a tip, you can do so via Ko-Fi.
Thank you for reading!
Pandan Weekly is a weekly email series produced by SEA Lit Circle, a community of writers and readers from Southeast Asia and the diaspora. At SEA Lit Circle, we inspire each other to write fresh, compelling work that’s true to ourselves, and we encourage each other to read and be more open to new works, stories, and perspectives within and beyond the region.
Subscribe to Pandan Weekly’s newsletter by leaving your email below.
We’d love to feature your writing. We want the works you wish someone out there would resonate with; works you write for fun, for your peace of mind, or for you to understand the world or yourself better; works you wish you had grown up with—works that beg for connections, or empathy. Check our submission guidelines through the link below.