by Nicole Yurcaba
According to the translator’s notes opening Lim Solah’s Grotesque Weather and Good People, “In the Korean of Lim Solah’s poems, there is an added strangeness.” The translator’s note continues: “Even when the self is grammatically marked as a subject, there is something object-like about it.” One of the first noticeable elements of Solah’s collection is its focus on the self. The second noticeable element is the speaker’s self-deprecating tone as the speaker makes introspective observations about their existence. However, the beauty of Grotesque Weather and Good People lies in its subtle philosophical tone, a tone that slowly develops throughout the collection and makes the speaker’s observations more than isolated emoting.
“Sand” bears one of the collection’s most memorable lines—“Today there were plenty of me’s.” This opening line in the first stanza is an example of what the translators noted in the collection’s opening notes. A linguistic strangeness exists in the lines with the objectification of “me.” In the tenth stanza, this line transforms—“Today there’s no end to the me’s.” Again, a strangeness persists, a multiplicity and an existence of various selves reinforced. The philosophical tone in “Sand” also causes the objectification to wax and wane. In the third stanza, readers discover lines reminiscent of The Who’s 1971 track “The Seeker:” “Seekers wonder where hiders are / and hiders wonder where seekers are. But me, / I wonder about wonder.” The speaker’s statements are bold and circular, the eye that ultimately controls the poem’s forthcoming stanzas. From this point to the poem’s conclusion, the poem shifts again into the deeply personal, building up to a shocking conclusion: “’I’m not alone,’ you say, but I wonder / how long you were.”
“Beautiful” is a poem reminiscent in tone and imagery of Dustin Pearson’s A Season in Hell with Rimbaud. The poem opens gracefully with the statement “I hang the ocean / in a frame.” The poem’s imagery is grotesque. The speaker states, “I’ve seen myself sinking into the ocean,” and they convey images of their limbs “corroded / into coral.” Coral becomes a primary image in “Beautiful.” It’s a place where the speaker’s “ashen limbs” become stuck, and “the coral forest” is a place observed by divers “headed back to land.” However, the speaker and the reader exit the watery dream-like (or to some, grave-like) scene. Just as in “Sand,” a philosophical observation becomes the poem’s eye:
People who have left this place said
the earth is a beautiful planet, but
because here is the only place I’ve ever
lived, I want to prove that here is hell.
This philosophical observation is not only the poem’s eye, but its turning point, as well as its return to the speaker’s reality—a seemingly empty, unfulfilled life.
Later in the collection, readers discover “Instead Of,” a compact, three-stanza poem that opens with the odiferous line “I once stretched out my arms to hold the body smell.” Smell becomes imperative to the poem. The speaker states, “As always, the body smells were bigger than the people.” The poem’s imagery then shifts significantly, and the poem becomes disjointed as the speaker looks “at the photo” and becomes trapped “In the memory / of me crying.” The disjointedness grows, and the poem becomes dream-like. Childhood becomes an inescapable state as “A child tries to suck a big toe instead of its thumb” and “Walks on hands and knees instead of feet.” These grotesque inversions calm, and the poem’s final three lines perpetuate the concept of an inescapable cycle: “Instead of a mobile / its shadow / revolves on the wall.”
“That’s Why” returns readers to the objectification of the self. The speaker’s initial statements might shock readers: “Apricot blossoms are terrifying. They rot black overnight.” The poem relies on enjambment and short lines to emphasize statements that parallel the initial, gross imagery:
Living is scarier than dying. The wasp trapped under the glass cup
doesn’t die.
It stays dying.
“That’s Why” becomes a poem of death and disappearance, with its most profound philosophy centering the poem: “I’m afraid because I have nothing to say. / I’m afraid that I might find something to say.” It transforms into a poem of perpetual fear, where “The things I dread break free.” Paranoia sets in for the speaker, and again enjambment becomes the key to creating this sensation: “I’m afraid of the way my drunk friends look at me. I’m afraid of the / way my not-drunk friends look at me.” The cycle ends and begins, carrying speaker and reader with it into the next fear, the next moment.
One of the collection’s most powerful poems is its final one, “Red.” Blending short stanzas and longer, prose ones, this three-section poem again creates a surrealistic, dream-like world for reader. The poem begins with a focus on the self, and the speaker reflects on the words “deer” and “girl.” The speaker notes, “Deer turn in zigzags as soon as they’re born / is what I heard. So they won’t get eaten.” The speaker’s observations about the word “deer” parallel their observations about the word “girl:” “I heard the word ‘girl.’ / I want to eat / is what I heard.” At this point, the poem transitions into its second section, where a paragraph of rhetorical questions and their potential answers unfold. The poem’s most philosophical, and most notable, section, however, is it’s third and final one. Here, the speaker’s uncertainty manifests: “I heard if I go there / I won’t find a road.” The speaker echoes insights from the first stanza: “I heard the word ‘human.’ / Humans cry the moment they’re born / is what I heard.” The speaker notes that at birth humans are “naked, dangled by the ankles” and that birth “is the first time / you’re required to cry.” Anchoring this stanza are two observations. The first is the speaker’s acknowledgement that at the moment of birth “Unspeakable suffering is broken.” The second is “Congratulations on the suffering.” However, the speaker grows defiant, and a survivalist tone, one of unlikely hope and perseverance concludes the poem as the speaker bluntly states, “I sing.”
Grotesque Weather and Good People is philosophical, psychological, thrilling, and haunting. It possesses its quiet, meditative moments, but overall, it’s a deep read. Many of its poems will leave readers returning to their stanzas two and three times, not because they are difficult to process, but because Solah, and the notable translation work of Munson Eunkyung, pack significant pieces of thought into minimal lines and words. This minimalist approach is part of the poetic and philosophical charm of Grotesque Weather and Good People, and Solah’s work is sure to become a large contribution to contemporary Korean poetry translated into English.
Nicole Yurcaba (Ukrainian: Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian-American poet and essayist. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Lindenwood Review, Whiskey Island, Raven Chronicles, Appalachian Heritage, North of Oxford, and many other online and print journals. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, is the recipient of a July 2020 Writing Residency at Gullkistan, Creative Center for the Arts in Iceland, and is a Tupelo Press June 2020 30 for 30 featured poet. Her poetry collection Triskaidekaphobia is forthcoming Black Spring Group in 2022. She teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University and works as a career counselor for Blue Ridge Community College.
