A collection of meditations on poetry, art and life, taken from the creative writing lectures of one of South Korea’s most prominent living poets

'Kick against words like you would kick back on a swing. You’ve got to feel as if the soles of your feet are touching the sky.'

These 470 aphorisms, collected by his students, are evocative micropoems in their own right. Some express ideas at once familiar and breathtakingly new – truths we could sense but not put into words. Others unfurl fresh vistas and offer worlds to explore in their exciting and inspiring poetics.

Together, they offer an invigorating and original answer to the questions: How – and why – do we write at all? What does it mean to create? And how should we see the world?

Translated by: Anton Hur