- Overview
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A book of love poems by poets about their cats.
- Book Intro
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This is an anthology of love poems by eighteen poets for their cats. It presents pictures of the poets' cats, the poems they wrote, short passages, and illustrations, thereby describing the joys and sadness of living with a cat.
To decipher the heart of a cat with a poet's mind
There are over ten million pet owners in South Korea today; therefore, it is important to think about what it means for humans to coexist with another animal. Cats are not easily tamed. Hence, the independent behavior of a cat is difficult to understand for people, even if they live together. That is the reason why the poets’ effort to observe and figure out these seemingly unfathomable creatures captivates our attention.
The poets find the cat has a myriad of countenances. For the poet, Hwang In-suk, a cat is a furry magician, who can produce endless hair, no matter how often she or he is brushed. To Shin Mi-na, another poet, regards them as a creature who is only preoccupied with oneself, who is indifferent to the poet’s recitation of poems or anything else she does. The poet, Han Jeong-weon, views them as a playful mate who likes to play hide-and-seek with its caretaker. What is common to all the different characteristics is that a cat makes the life of a human challenging.
What should we do with these utterly self-absorbed and seemingly cool but most loveable animal? The poet, Kwon Mi-gyeong, writes, "The curiosity of a cat is in the realm of our understanding and is also beyond it" and that loving a cat is strictly one-sided. Concerning that statement, isn’t love that is beyond the understanding of a particular species what we really need to coexist with cats?
* Co-authors : Kim Seung-il; Kwon Min-gyeong; Kim Geon-yeong; Kim Jan-di; Kim Ha-neul; Park Si-ha; Bae Su-yeon; Baek Eun-seon; Shin Mi-na; Yu Jin-mok; Yi Min-ha; Yi Hyeon-ho; Jo Eun; Ji Hyeon-ah; Choi Gyu-seung; Han Yeon-hui; Han Jeong-weon; Hwang In-suk
- About the Author
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Kim Seung-il
Kim Seung-il debuted as a poet in 2009 in Hyundae Literature. Education and Please Use It Up to This Point are books of poems by him.
Baek Eun-seon
Baek Eun-seon debuted as a poet in 2012 in Literature and Society. She wrote the following two anthologies of poems, Possible World and Films Made of Scenes No one Can Remember.
Shin Mi-na
Shin Mi-na debuted as a poet after winning the Kyunghyang Daily New Writer’s Award in 2007. Shingo is her anthology of poems. She wrote and illustrated the cartoon, Poetry Sister(시(詩)누이) and Hello, Haetae.
Hwang In-suk
Hwang In-suk was born in Seoul in 1958 and graduated from the Seoul Institute of Arts with a degree in Creative Writing. She made her literary debut in 1984 with her poem I Will Be Born as a Cat winning the annual spring literary contest by Kyunghyang Shinmun. Collections of Poetry created by Hwang Insook include Birds Freely Fly across the Sky, The Sorrow Wakes Me Up, We Met like a Pair of Migratory Birds, Dear My Gloomy and Precious, An Obvious Walk, and A Night Train to Lisbon. Because I Have Not Loved To My Heart’s Content, An Evening on Any Day. Her books of essays are In-suk Rambling, Things the Narrow Alley Held, Cats of Haebangchon, and The Racing, Three Cats. She has received the East West Literary Award in 1999 and the Kim Sooyoung Literary Award in 2004.
