Poetry Commendation Award winner Levi Lee

Levi Lee is a student of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea) Translation Academy Fellowship at the LTI Korea.

Born in the United States, he came to Korea at age one, where he spent half of his life. He earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master's in Korean language and literature from Seoul National University.

He set foot in the world of translation after coming across Kim Hye-soon's poem “Black Brassiere” in professor Robert Haas' creative writing class at UC Berkeley. Reading the Korean version and English translation of the poem, he naturally became interested in poetry translation and began translating poems six years ago, which became his hobby.

“As I read the poem in English and Korean side by side, I began to wonder why the translator had made certain choices in their translation and thought about how I would perhaps translate differently,” he said.

Lee translated a selection of Hwang In-chan's poems, including "A Bright Room,” for the contest.

He came across the poet while he was looking for simple poems with deep meaning. “Poems like these that are deceptively simple, poems of ‘hidden depths,' I think, are the most difficult to write and the most interesting to read,” he said.

Hwang's simple use of words, however, was the biggest challenge for Lee, as he had to capture the poems' underlying meaning in his translation.

“Hwang In-chan's poems are easy to read because he uses simple words, but the simplicity never detracts from his poems, and the poems themselves never seem simple upon reading them,” he said. “There's a sense of depth despite the simplicity of the words, and I wanted to transfer that dual sense of simplicity and depth without bringing too much attention to the former.”

Adding that his definition of good translation changes from time to time, he shared that the crucial attribute for a translator is having respect for both the original work and their translation as a work of art.

“The debate in translation is usually one of fidelity and creativity, and which one I decide to prioritize ultimately depends on, first, my mood, and second, the intended readership,” Lee said. “If they have both (respect for original work and their own translation), and their language skills are up to par, I think a good translation is bound to come out.”