Poetry, Translations

Flowers of a Moment

by Brother Anthony, Young-moo Kim, Gary Gach, Ko Un

Winner of the 2007 Northern California Book Award in Translation

Flowers of a Moment, Ko Un's latest treasure trove, is a recital of a stunning range of feeling, intellection, and expression featuring 180 brief zen poems from Korea's most beloved poet and four-time Nobel Prize nominee. These are intimate sketches by a literary giant at the apex of his career, in the autumn of his life. The effect of these poems is as subtle as the freshest green tea, as tonic as the best ginseng, as powerful as a shaman drum solo, as intimate as a standing before a waterfall. This edition also features a dozen inkbrush calligraphies by the poet, done especially for the english-language edition. "Bodhisattva of Korean poetry, exuberant, demotic, abundant, obsessed with poetic creation... Ko Un is a magnificent poet, combination of Buddhist cognoscente, passionate political libertarian, and naturalist historian."-- Allen Ginsberg

In the old days a poet once said

In the old days a poet once said
our nation is destroyed
yet the mountains and rivers survive

Today's poet says
the mountains and rivers are destroyed
yet our nation survives

Tomorrow's poet will say
the mountain's and rivers are destroyed
our nation is destroyed and Alas!
you and I are completely destroyed

© BOA Editions, Ltd 2006

Available editions:
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Cloth ISBN: 978-1-929918-87-4
Price: $25.95
Publishing Date: September 2006
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-929918-88-1
Price: $17.95
Publishing Date: September 2006

FormatPaperback , Hardcover

Publication DateSeptember 1, 2006

ISBN978-1-929918-88-1

From $17.95

About the Author

Brother Anthony

Brother Anthony was born in Britain in 1942. He studied at Queen’s College, Oxford University, before joining the Community of Taizé (France) in 1969. He lived in the Philippines from 1977 to 1980, then moved to Korea, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1994. He is a professor in the English Department of Sogang University, Seoul. His published translations of Korean literature include Ko Un’s The Sound of My Waves, Ten Thousand Lives, Little Pilgrim, Beyond Self, Songs for Tomorrow, and Flowers of a Moment. He has also published translations of poems by Ku Sand, Midang, Ch`ǒn Sang Pyǒng, Kim Su-Yǒng, Shin Kyǒng-Nim, Lee Si-Yǒng, and Kim Kwang-Kyu, et al., and fiction by Yi Mun-Yol among others—some 20 volumes so far.

Young-moo Kim

Young-moo Kim was born in 1944 in Paju, near Seoul. After graduating from Seoul National University, he received his Ph.D. from SUNY at Stony Brook and became a Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Seoul National University. He, Gary Gach, and Brother Anthony collaborated in translating Ko Un's Flowers of a Moment and several other Korean poets’ works into English. He began to write his own poems in 1991 and has published three volumes. His last collection, Virtual Reality, which centered on his struggle with cancer, received the 2001 Paeksǒk Award. He died on November 26, 2001.

Gary Gach

Gary Gach was born in 1947 in Los Angeles and received a B.A. from SFSU in 1970. Honored with an American Book Award for his anthology What Book?! Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop, he is also author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism (second edition), Preparing the Ground: Poems 1960-70, Writers.Net, and several other titles. With C. H. Kwock, he has translated poetry from all the dynasties of China. A San Francisco Bay-swimmer, he teaches at Book Passage University, San Francisco Zen Center, and Stanford Continuing Studies. His translation of Ko Un's Flowers of a Moment was published by BOA Editions in 2006.

Ko Un

Five-time Nobel nominee, Ko Un is a South Korean author whose works have been translated and published in more than fifteen countries. His poetry collection, Flowers of A Moment: 185 brief zen poems was translated into English and published by BOA in 2006. He has published over 100 volumes of poetry, essays, fiction, drama, and translations of Chinese poetry. He lives with his wife and daughter in a village two hours from Seoul.