HWANG Yu-Won (South Korea) is a poet and translator. He made his debut as a poet, winning the Munhakdongne New Artist award in 2013. His book of poetry Everything in the World, Maximized (2015) won the Kim Soo-young Prize which is considered one of the most important poetry awards in South Korea. In 2019, Hwang published his latest collection You Should See Me in a Crown (2019). Among his works of translations are Bob Dylan’s The Lyrics: 1961–2012, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, as well as the works of Max Porter, David Szalay, John Gardner, Kahlil Gibran and Walt Whitman. Hwang is now completing his Ph.D. in Philosophy at Dongguk.
The Sleeping Habits of Laughing Buddha (Cloth Sack)
I went to the Nakgasa temple in Deungmyeong
and fell asleep touching the belly of Laughing Buddha (Cloth Sack).
Squishy and fat,
a suffocating sleep. . . . .
Even while Laughing Buddha (Cloth Sack), hung over me, beating me,
I did not wake from my dream!
Bloated like a balloon
I spent all night inside Laughing Buddha (Cloth Sack)’s gut.
Even when all the lights were put out
there wasn’t a single darkness.
Dark nights and the like were stuffed into a cloth sack so
the sack became as big as the world darkness belonged to and,
completely blackened,
his belly bloated
to the extent of the coverage
of the sleeping night that spread in every direction and
the dirtiness of Laughing Buddha (Cloth Sack) became a dirty so dirty
that all the dirties of this world
became citizens of a nation of dirty that belonged only to him.
Saying this saying today
and saying that saying tomorrow,
because of the incongruent nature of inconsistencies,
everything in the world became something that had to be stuffed in his belly.
When he tries to sleep in some other place,
a new place is added to the world inside him, and
now there is nothing that can’t fit.
The face made while beating a stomach, bom, bom, beating a drum,
the face made while laughing about this and laughing about that,
the face made while Jesus, my God, my stomach’s going to burst!
Yes, that face, it’s a face that attracts luck
even when luck finds that face unattractive. Yes, a face
that expresses something that is almost a threat.
Luck, fortune, because it is always reading that face,
becomes small in front of the face, and
because of the bigness and fatness,
no matter where you roll,
as long as you roll together,
you can go around the world with that face
and not get a single scratch.
His stomach has become as big
as the world has become big
so that there is no difference; no difference
between being in the world inside the Laughing Buddha’s gut
or outside the Laughing Buddha’s gut.
Inside a dream or outside a dream,
inside a stomach or outside an inside-out stomach,
what’s the difference?
The last Laughing Buddha I saw
was laughing like a maniac, tearing his entire body to shreds.
With a noise like air escaping a balloon coming from his anus,
laughing Buddha has become almost completely deflated.
I guess that instead of saying he sleeps anywhere,
it’d be more accurate to say
he covers the place he lies at entirely with his body.
Yes, Laughing Buddha becomes a single, charming blanket.
(Translated by Jake Levine)
黃有源（南韓），以詩人身份出道，並為翻譯家，於2013年獲得文學村出版社新藝術家獎。2015年出版的詩集《世間萬物最大化》獲得韓國最重要詩歌獎金洙暎詩歌獎；2019年出版最新詩作《你應該看見我戴皇冠》。翻譯著作包括鮑伯．迪倫的《歌詞集：1961– 2012》、美國作家赫爾曼．梅爾維爾的《白鯨記》，以及麥斯．波特、大衛．邵洛依、約翰．加德納、卡理爾．紀伯倫和沃爾特．惠特曼的詩歌。黃裕元現於東國大學攻讀哲學博士學位。
布袋和尚的睡眠習慣
前往燈明洛伽寺
撫摸著布袋和尚的肚子入眠
大腹便便
一場窒息的睡眠……
布袋和尚在上方敲擊著我
我卻未從睡夢中醒來！
再看一眼，那布袋像氣球脹大
我在布袋和尚腹中度過整夜
即使燈全都熄滅
也無一絲一毫的黑暗
漆黑的夜以及類似的一切全都被裝入布袋中
布袋因此脹大，如同黑暗所在的世界一般脹大
徹底黑暗
沉睡的夜向四方延伸，愈是蔓延，他的肚子
愈發脹大
他太過污穢
以至於世間的一切污穢
化作他的污穢
今日如此說道
明日卻那般說道
前後不一
因此世間一切都需裝入其腹中
每次當他請求在別處沉睡時
世上那處便進入其腹中
如今世間一切無所其不能容納
當你的臉龐敲打著肚子時，咚咚作響，像是擊鼓
這樣笑著，那樣笑著，哎呀！肚子要裂開了！
你的臉龐招來福氣，那定會招福的臉
變幻成近乎威脅表情的臉
福氣看著你的眼色
在你面前縮小
你面若圓盤
無論滾動到世間何處，只要與你一齊滾動
一絲傷口都不會留下
他的肚子現在，幻化得與世間一般大
於腹中的我而言，在外面的世界，亦或在其腹中，並無二致
在夢境之中，在夢境之外，在腹中，在翻轉的腹中，皆無區別
我最終眺望著的布袋和尚
像狂人一般笑著，全身絲絲縷縷地飄散
伴隨著從肛門中發出的氣球漏氣聲
布袋和尚在此刻傾塌
與其說他在任意之處沉眠
不如說他用整個身體覆蓋所臥之地
布袋和尚幻化為一件精巧的被子
（翻譯﹕陳佳琳）