Lee Seong-bok

Anton Hur

Iridescent and intransigently nuanced, these aphorisms collected by students show the worldly intelligence of an inspiring teacher and a highly accomplished poet. The wisdom encoded in this book challenges us to rethink our craft as writers and our preconceptions as readers. It’s a book I’ll keep returning to year after year

A brilliant and beautiful book; new required reading for all of us as we continue on in our life-long study of poetry and the world

As pragmatic as it is beautiful … Hur’s translation is limpid and witty

Provocative … There’s a reason Lee’s students have been scribbling down his every word

Provocative and inspiring, this is a new poetry essential

Lee's aphorisms endure, smouldering in the mind. They are evocative, surprising and thoroughly concerned with the endeavour of writing itself

Notes from a poetry class

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. 
 
Indeterminate Inflorescence is a collection of meditations on poetry, art and life, taken from the creative writing lectures of Lee Seong-bok, one of South Korea’s most prominent living poets. 
 
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?

Indeterminate Inflorescence

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Lee Seong-bok

Praise for Indeterminate Inflorescence

Iridescent and intransigently nuanced, these aphorisms collected by students show the worldly intelligence of an inspiring teacher and a highly accomplished poet. The wisdom encoded in this book challenges us to ...

A brilliant and beautiful book; new required reading for all of us as we continue on in our life-long study of poetry and the world

As pragmatic as it is beautiful … Hur’s translation is limpid and witty

Iridescent and intransigently nuanced, these aphorisms collected by students show the worldly intelligence of an inspiring teacher and a highly accomplished poet. The wisdom encoded in this book challenges us to ...

A brilliant and beautiful book; new required reading for all of us as we continue on in our life-long study of poetry and the world

As pragmatic as it is beautiful … Hur’s translation is limpid and witty

Iridescent and intransigently nuanced, these aphorisms collected by students show the worldly intelligence of an inspiring teacher and a highly accomplished poet. The wisdom encoded in this book challenges us to ...

A brilliant and beautiful book; new required reading for all of us as we continue on in our life-long study of poetry and the world

As pragmatic as it is beautiful … Hur’s translation is limpid and witty

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