Recipient of the 2026 Arts Council Korea Literature Fellowship
If there was a book of the soul, what would I write on the last page? There's no target, no rose-tinted past, no verdant future. What should I cry? It's just my job to miss things. —From "A Job I Do Not Recommend" in Physiological Tears (Munhakdongne, 2021)
Lee Jae-hoon writes in the language of dreams with primeval sensibility and mythological imagination.
1. Life
Lee Jae-hoon was born in 1972 in Yeongwol-gun, Gangwon Province. His childhood was spent in the neighborhood famed for being the birthplace of Kim Sakkat, "the wandering poet." He grew up playing in the deep mountains and clear streams of the countryside. The family moved many times due to his father's work, and finally settled in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, where he attended high school, after which he completed his studies in Seoul. He currently resides in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. Lee's poetry is influenced by his experience growing up in a devout Christian household. He began writing poetry and fiction at university and made his literary debut in 1998 in the magazine Korean Modern Poetry. From his first collection, A Report on the Tribe Where My First Word Lives, Lee has consistently employed a mythological point of view. He has since published a total of five collections of poetry. In 2023 he published the collection Rock Is Thunder, centered on the object of rocks, and is since on the lookout for new material. Lee is also active as a literary critic, and has published five volumes of criticism. As an interviewer, his I Am a Poet collects decades' worth of conversations with 35 well-known Korean poets. Lee received his doctorate in Korean literature from Chung-Ang University for his thesis on the sense of nihil in modern Korean poetry. He has taught literature and writing at university for the past 20 years.
2. Writing
Lee Jae-hoon is known for his highly developed mythological imagination. His poems are not written as dreams fleeing from painful reality, but in order to withstand that reality. The disillusionment of the world merely spurs forth and awakens his mythological, anthropological imagination (Jeong Jahak, poet). Lee's first collection, A Report on the Tribe Where My First Word Lives (2005), attempts an apocalyptic interpretation of reality through divine experiences. His second collection, Becoming Pluto, deals with the melancholy and consciousness of extinction of modern urbanites. Lee shows his range in poems showcasing the weariness of day laborers, the self-recrimination of the unemployed, the pride of the autodidact and the spirit of the poet. His third collection, Bug Myth, contains the ruminations of the speaker transformed into a bug. The poems meld Lee's mythological imagination with scenes from his daily life as he approaches middle age. In his fourth collection, Physiological Tears, tears are viewed as a stand-in for the poet. Lee plays with sensory thinking in which all sorts of bodily secretions meet with the world. His fifth collection, Rock Is Thunder, deciphers primeval sensations and humanity through the object of rocks. Lee Jae-hoon's poetics may be diagnosed as being surrounded by nomadic yet apocalyptic scenes borrowing from religious imagination on the outside, with a core that looks back with pain upon his youth, backed up by visions of sleepwalking the urban desert (Yoo Sung-ho, literary critic). He is esteemed to have opened up a new direction in 2000s poetry, using mythological imagination to weather the pain of oscillating between divine memory and the disenchantment of urban reality (Oh Hyung-yup, literary critic).
Reference
Poems
A Report on the Tribe Where My First Word Lives 내 최초의 말이 사는 부족에 관한 보고서 (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 2005/2022 문학동네, 2005/2022년 개정판)
Becoming Pluto 명왕성 되다 (Minumsa Publishing Group 민음사, 2011)
Bug Myth 벌레 신화 (Minumsa Publishing Group 민음사, 2016)
Physiological Tears 생물학적인 눈물 (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2021)
Rock Is Thunder 돌이 천둥이다 (Asia Publishers 아시아, 2023)
Poems Translated in English
Rock Is Thunder (Asia Publishers 아시아, 2023)
As Editor
Complete Works of Lee Hyeonggi 이형기전집 (Hankuk Munyeon 한국문연, 2018)
Essays
It’s My Job to Miss Things 그리워하는 직업을 가졌을 뿐인데요 (Blue Paper 청색종이, 2024)
Criticism and Academic Works
Modern Poetry and Nihilism 현대시와 허무의식 (Korean Studies Information Co., Ltd. 한국학술정보, 2007)
The Poetics of Dilemma 딜레마의 시학 (Korean Studies Archive 국학자료원, 2008)
The Rhetoric of Absence 부재의 수사학 (Jackkawabipyeng 작가와비평, 2012)
Signs and Surplus 징후와 잉여 (Kyungjin 경진출판, 2022)
Fantasy and Topophilia 환상과 토포필리아 (Youkrack Books 역락, 2023)
Interviews
I Am a Poet 나는 시인이다 (Fandom Books 팬덤북스, 2011)
Comics
Why? People: Ilhan New Why? People 유일한 (Yearimdang 예림당, 2016)
Co-authored
I Just Fell for You 어쩌다 당신이 좋아서: 내 생애 최고의 '사랑 고백'을 꿈꾸는 그대에게 (Gombooks 곰, 2013)
The Winding Paths Sparkled and Flowed 굽은 길들이 반짝이며 흘러갔다: 한국대표시인 49인의 테마시집·아버지 (Namu Bench 나무옆의자, 2016)
이럴 땐 쓸쓸해도 돼: 슬픔과 고독, 폐허와 상실에 응답한 서른네 명 시인들이 쏟아낸 문장들 (Imagine1000 천년의상상, 2016)
Listen to the Song of the Candles 촛불의 노래를 들어라 (Maumsup 마음의숲, 2016)
Lest Your Beauty Turned Into Words 너의 아름다움이 온통 글이 될까봐: 문학동네시인선 100 기념 티저 시집 (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2017)
Where Does a Poem Come From? 시는 어떻게 오는가: 한국대표시인 22人이 들려주는 시적 순간들 (Siindongne 시인동네, 2018)
All the Things I Loved Were in Your Eyes 너의 눈동자엔 내가 사랑하는 모든 것이 있었다 (Namu Bench 나무옆의자, 2018)
Searching for Language 언어의 모색 (Theoria 테오리아, 2018)
My India 나의 인도 (Yolimwon 열림원, 2018)
Literature, Its Heights and Depths: A Study of Park Bum Shin 문학 그 높고 깊은: 박범신 문학연구 (Gurumsojae 구름서재, 2021)
Someone Was Already Imagining Me: 2021 Poetry Anthology 누군가 이미 나를 상상하고 있었다: 2021 시 앤솔러지 (Blue Paper 청색종이, 2021)
My Heart and Mom Were Green 마음과 엄마는 초록이었다: 엄마를 부르는 마흔 편의 시, 마흔 편의 산문 (Nanda 난다, 2022)
Time Is Like a Thick Veil, so I Can’t See You 시간은 두꺼운 베일 같아서 당신을 볼 수 없지만: 오늘의 시인 10인 앤솔러지 시집 (Gyoyudang Co. Ltd. 교유서가, 2023)
Poems for a Wan Earth 창백한 지구를 위한 시: 지구를 생각하는 시인들의 시와 산문 (Maumsup 마음의숲, 2025)
Reference
오형엽, <종교적 신성과 그로테스크 미학 - 이재훈 시의 중층적 상징체계와 발생론적 매커니즘>, 현대시 , 한국문연, 2024.
유성호, <꿈의 사제가 들려주는 묵시의 소리들>, 내 최초의 말이 사는 부족에 관한 보고서 , 문학동네, 2005.
조강석, <비약의 귀재 소멸의 총아>, 명왕성 되다 , 민음사, 2011.
장은수, <뿔 없는 벌레의 시학>, 벌레 신화 , 민음사, 2016.
송종원, <걷기의 시학과 사제의 눈물>, 생물학적인 눈물 , 문학동네, 2021.
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