Part literary translation and part language workbook, video documentary, and musical performance (provided on accompanying DVDs), each volume in Songs of Thorns and Flowers: Bilingual Performance and Discourse on Modern Korean Poetry, orchestrated by Chan E. Park, reflects the various aims of this new series: to make a pedagogical contribution to the study of Korean language and literature, to “explore the performativity of modern Korean poetic language” (In the Tree, p. 14) to provide a lens through which to understand Korean history and culture, and to honor the legacy of the poet Ku Sang (1919–2004). The first two books to emerge from the collaboration between the Ku Sang Memorial Association and Ohio State University's National East Asian Language Resource Center sometimes fall short of these ambitions, but as entire performances they are inspired attempts to create a space where Korean poetry can be appreciated as an instrument for language acquisition, an avenue for cultural exploration, and, perhaps most crucially, a source of sensual pleasure.

The first two volumes of Songs of Thorns and Flowers present functional renditions of work by two important contemporary poets, Kim Hyung-Young and Yoo An-Jin. Kim has authored eight collections of poems; Yoo has published fifteen and is also a respected essayist. Collectively, they have won many of South Korea's literary prizes. The insistent lyric voices created by Yoo in There Remain Words to Say probe the fluidity of Korea's cultural legacy. Kim's delicate verses in In the Tree rest upon on the frailty of human perception. Each volume is reflective of Ku Sang's poetry and a fitting tribute to his memory.

To render the work of these poets in English, Park draws on her considerable knowledge of Korea's performative traditions. Author of a foundational monograph on p'ansori, a form of operatic storytelling, and also a well-respected practitioner of the art, Park has created translations that are generally accurate but often awkward. A rare instance where Park misrepresents the Korean original suggests the general discordance.

The translation of Yoo An-Jin's subtle lyric about the redemptive power of nature's inhumanity begins on a graceless note with an ungrammatical second line. “Sluggard” in the second line of the second stanza is an uncomfortable rendition of kumbengi 굼벵이, a common colloquial pejorative for “idler.” Kumbengi are “grubs,” which is probably a better choice here. Park also inverts the sense of this line—the grubs are underground dreaming of cicadas—thereby obscuring how the Korean clarifies the poem's motif of redemptive transformation. Plural “purslanes” and the clumsy definite article in the final line add to the sense that the translation is slightly off.

It is possible to quibble like this because Park provides the Korean originals. In fact, she encourages her readers to interrogate her translations, offering a plethora of questions and glosses. She asks readers of Yoo's lyric, for example, to pick out and learn many phrases in the accompanying Korean text, such as “dreaming of cicadas,” so they can internalize the Korean poem. Discussion questions are also provided. “Human civilization is often at odds with the natural world, while bugs and worms benefit it,” Park prods. “We are forgiven not because of who we are, but despite who we are. Discuss the connection or disconnection between human, non-human beings, and nature” (There Remain Words to Say, p. 33) These prompts (surely too pedantic for some) show how Park attempts to spur readers of the poems to investigate cultural assumptions and philosophical attitudes.

While Park's translations and their accompanying pedagogical apparatus can feel off-key and overbearing on paper, the performance she articulates by means of the interviews, recitations, and musical presentations on the accompanying DVDs is consonant and alive, animating the whole project. The intimate home-movie quality of the recordings reveals the poets and their poems better than the introductory textual expositions. The forceful musical rendition of Kim Hyung-Young's “Between Heaven and Earth” by Moon Hyun, Hong Suk-Bok, and Kim Sung-tae provides a powerful counterpoint to the delicate way that his poems rest on the printed page. The setting Park has chosen for her interview with Yoo An-Jin similarly enhances our understanding of her poems. Park talks with Yoo on the porch of an old home in rural Andong in late summer. Cicadas whir loudly in the trees, making it difficult, at times, to hear the poet. By choosing this location, Park performs the wisdom of Yoo's short lyric “Reason for Being Forgiven”; we are reminded of the pleasure provided by poetry spoken on a porch on a hot summer day in competition with the insects. Experiencing the poems in these ways transforms our encounter with the printed texts. We forgive the little dissonances of the paperbound incarnations and appreciate them as contextual aids in an entire performance worthy of our attention.