Posted : 2021-01-22 13:09 By Mattho Mandersloot
Poet Choi Jeong-ryeOn Jan. 16, the world lost an incredible poet, thinker and, above all, human being. No amount of writing will suffice to sing her praises, but, as one of her translators, I will offer a few words here, in hopes of showing just how incredible she really was. I was privileged enough to make her acquaintance at a London event in 2018, after which we remained in touch. Words fail me to describe how fortunate I feel to have known her. Allow me to commit my impressions of her to memory.
When Choi and I first crossed paths, after the School of Oriental and African Studies invited her to give a reading, she forever changed my perception of poetry. Up until then, I had thought of poetry as a pursuit reserved for a select few, to whom it chose to present itself. Choi made me realize poetry is not only for everyone, it is also everywhere.
At the beginning of May 2020, I received an email from Kathy Gilfillan, an old friend and neighbour from the Wicklow hills. In April, John Boorman told Kathy that he was writing a nature diary, and as a director of the Lilliput Press, Kathy suggested he publish it. John agreed to continue the diary through the months of April, May and June, the duration of the national lockdown, and I was asked to illustrate it.
This would be our second collaboration of words and images. John had collected my paintings over the years and was particularly fond of a large watercolour of a beech tree I had painted around 1999. He rang me one day to tell me he was writing some poems about his trees and had written one about the painting. That led to him asking me to illustrate all the tree poems for Conclusions, his memoir published by Faber & Faber in February.