“In the landscape mirrored in your eyes, there I was, starting to make an appearance”

Even as love crumbles, once more, its fleeting beauty is captured with all one’s might—a record of love, documented by the poet Lee Byungryul

Poet Lee Byungryul’s seventh collection of poems, Once in Love So Profound, has been published as the 601st edition of Moonji Publishing’s Poet Selections. Under the theme of love, this anthology presents a subtle fusion of sea shades and sky hues against a soft lilac backdrop, reminiscent of Picasso’s Blue Period (1901-1904), during which he stubbornly adhered to deep blue colors following the suicide of a close friend. What caught the eye of the young Picasso, who struggled to adapt to life in Paris and continued to live in poverty, was none other than the destitute people of the streets, such as blind men, hunched women, and those drinking absinthe. Observing Picasso’s works today, one can feel the anxiety of the young artist and the inherent solitude of human existence. Beneath it all lies the fragile love of an artist, capturing the emptiness of human eyes and the sturdy bones under the skin, with colors of the deep night sky and the abyssal sea. Similarly, Lee’s achingly poignant verses and the lingering hunger in his words stem from the poet’s contemplation of those who “strive to get closer to something” (from “To Youth”) and those who once again “become poetic faces” (from “Full Reader’s Club”). Even while always on the move with the inherent duty of departure, Lee ruminates over “more faces to love” (from “Train Station”) and witnesses humanity while observing an old man crouching in the middle of the road, “stroking a fallen dog.” In this way, Lee frequently pauses in his poems to ensure he doesn’t overlook the love before him. Burdened by the loneliness of his own existence yet unable to turn away from genuine love and compassion toward others, Lee returns from a period of literary refinement in Paris to embody the essence of the era’s sensibility in his new collection. Hence, who out there wouldn’t owe a part of their youth to him?

Upon receiving the proposal for his new anthology, Lee immediately ventured to a place where snow falls incessantly. He chose to immerse himself in eternal snow, aiming to unearth the love that had long clung to him. His love neither sifts through the remnants of the past nor awaits the uncertain future; it simply makes space for love itself. Interestingly, an anthology on love had long been requested by a senior poet, Heo Sugyeong. She was the one who introduced him to the term “dear” and also penned the commentary for his poetry collection Brilliant (Moonji Publishing, 2010). During her lifetime, Heo had spoken to Lee about love poems while in Berlin, Germany. Believing that promises between people must always be honored, Lee wove together his long cherished but lost fragments of love, to craft his new collection of love poems. Thus, love—once substituted in his poems and essays, with myriad words such as “dear,” “wind,” “brilliance,” “inn,” “sea,” “solitude,” and “happiness and separation,” and once riddled with hesitation and doubt, now stands boldly right in front of the readers.