English
On a night of countless stars To the cool current of a north wind The persimmon fell green to a dog’s harsh bark
Baek Seok · Poems of the North / Read & listen
Green Persimmon
청시 (靑枾)
Three lines. A night full of sound.
A sky, a wind, a falling fruit and a dog. The poem gives us almost nothing to hold still—and a whole scene to hear.
The published text
한국어
별 많은 밤 하누바람이 불어서 푸른 감이 떨어진다 개가 즞는다
Hear the original
Listen to the Korean.
Korean reading by Hojae Kim. Follow the Korean text, then return to the English.
See the original illustrated pages
A landscape made by small things
The poem begins at the largest scale, beneath countless stars, then moves into the current of a wind and ends close to the ground. Its world arrives through an ordinary fruit and an animal’s voice. This is a small example of the attention Peter N. Liptak describes in the book’s introduction: nature and the objects of daily life become the material of a poem.
Listen to the ending
In the Korean, the falling persimmon and the barking dog meet in the last line. The published English draws their sounds and movement together in “The persimmon fell green to a dog’s harsh bark”. Read the line without deciding too quickly which event explains the other. The poem lets the wind, the fall and the bark share a moment.
A word worth hearing
Listen for 하누바람 in Hojae Kim’s reading, then return to “a north wind” in the English. Liptak’s introduction places particular emphasis on Baek Seok’s regional words and his use of familiar landscapes. Keeping both languages visible lets a reader encounter the expression itself as well as its translation.
Read it again
Where does your attention go first: to the stars, the cold air, the fruit or the dog? On a second reading, begin with the sound at the end and look back toward the sky. This is a reading invitation, rather than a claim that the poem has one hidden explanation.
Sources & credits
Poems by Baek Seok. English translation by Peter N. Liptak. Korean reading by Hojae Kim. Artwork in the printed spreads by Choi Joongwon.
Text: Baek Seok: Poems of the North (Exile Press, 2018), pp. 74–75. Context draws on the edition’s “About the Author” (pp. 6–9), “The Palatal Poems of Baek Seok” and introduction (pp. 14–18), and chronology (pp. 316–323), alongside Liptak’s earlier research manuscript, The Palatal Poems of Baek Suk.
The reading notes are new editorial commentary based on those sources. They are not additional quotations from Liptak or a revision of his translation.
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The complete edition
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324-page illustrated hardcover. Korean originals and English translations by Peter N. Liptak, with artwork by Choi Joongwon.
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