Apr 21 2024

New anthology, in South Korean

Hi everyone,

The book I’ve been waiting to see arrived on Friday. It’s a 387-page collection of poems and artwork reminiscent of JAN GREENBERG’S book, Heart to Heart, in which my poem in this South Korean book originally appeared.

This new book is all in South Korean, including the names of the poets and artists, so unless I recognize someone by his or her picture, or pick out their names in the credits, I’m stuck. I do recognize a few, though, enough to appreciate that I’m in good company, and I can read the poems, which are in English on the left side of the spread and South Korean on the right. Forgive the hurried pictures. The book is tightly bound and hard to keep open with one hand and shoot with the other.

Apr 3 2024

“It’s Me!” in a South Korean anthology

Hi everyone,

The other day I received a note from an editor in Seoul, South Korea. About a year ago she contacted me for permission to use one of my poems, “It’s Me!”, in a collection she was putting together. The poem, which is about Marilyn Monroe, appeared originally in From Heart to Heart, New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art, an Abrams book edited by JAN GREENBERG. It was published in 2001 and was awarded the Michael L. Printz Honor Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.

My Seoul editor tells me that most of her book is in Korean, but wants me to see how the book turned out. One of these days when my copy arrives, I’ll show it to you. Meanwhile, the original book is still doing well after twenty-three years. As of today it ranks #259 in Poetry for Teens and Young Adults.

with warm thanks,

Kyounghye Jin

Mar 27 2022

Andy, Marilyn, and Me

Hi everyone,

I read recently that an ANDY WARHOL painting of MARILYN MONROE, “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn,” is slated to go up for auction this May and fetch around $200 million. That brought back memories in a hurry.

JAN GREENBURG published an art/poetry book in 2001. It was a collection of poems and the famous paintings they inspired. I wrote a poem for it based on an Andy Warhol diptych called Cow Wallpaper. I reasoned that only one of the cows in the picture was the original model so therefore all the others were fakes. I called the poem “It’s Me.”

At the last minute Jan learned that she couldn’t obtain rights to that painting, but she could get them for a Marilyn Monroe diptych so she asked me if that might work with my poem. I liked my adaptation better than the original. Monroe was often described as a woman who could be conflicted, maybe not always certain about who she was or had become. My poem fit her on a different level than it did the cows.

The poem was published in HEART TO HEART and drew some attention. The book itself won a lot of accolades. It’s a beautiful anthology.

Later my poem was picked up and reprinted in a book called ART AND ARTISTS POEMS, published by Alfred A. Knopf and filled with work by poets past and present worldwide.

The reason the upcoming auction of Marilyn caught my attention is that this painting of her was one of the ones in the diptych I used for my cow-to-Marilyn poem in 2001.