My head hurts

The bow taut.
Twang!
The arrow strikes
your eye.
By the pain of your darkness the moon rose.

(From Beyond Self, Translated by Young-Moo Kim and Brother Anthony)

This is a zen poem by Korean writer Ko Un. I have been reading about his poetry today, after staying up all night working on a big translation project. My head hurts...

This is the (long-and-winding) story about how I found Ko Un:

I was reading the news on a Korean newspaper website, and got interested in the story about former dictator Park Chung-Hee. When I searched for more stories about him, using google, I came accross an essay called "A Scandinavian View of Ko Un's Poetry" by Jesper R. Matsumoto Mulbjerg, from a conference on 'The Poetic World of Ko Un' two years ago at Stockholm University, Sweden. Because that lecture appeared on a website of Changbi Publisher, which also has an article about the dictator, I was able to find out more about the poet... Synchronicity...?

Jesper R. Matsumoto Mulbjerg:
"A Scandinavian View of Ko Un's Poetry"

Kevin O'Rourke:
"A Review of Beyond Self by Ko Un"

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