Cho Oh-Hyun is in retreat at Baekdamsa Temple at Mt. Seoraksan. The lineage holder of the Mt. Gaji school of Korean Nine Mountains Zen, he received the Cheong Chi-yong Literary Award for Distant Holy Man in 2007, and translations of his work have appeared in Asymptote, the Buddhist Poetry Review, Asia Literary Review, Azalea, and the Adirondack Review. Heinz Insu Fenkl is associate professor of English and Asian studies at SUNY New Paltz. He is the author of Memories of My Ghost Brother and is working on a translation of Yi Mun-yol's novella Meeting with My Brother.

In his Translator's Afterword, Heinz Insu Fenkl describes his astonishing encounter with the poems in this collection-from dream encounter with the poet, to the poems, then the poet himself. Extraordinary workings of the three-line sijo form into the spaces of Zen practice, the poems call us to see! -- David McCann, Harvard University Reading these translations of Cho Oh-hyun's Zen sijo is like shining a light on a carefully cut, many-faceted stone. The poems are concentrated, understated, and effortlessly colloquial, both immediately accessible and, paradoxically, mysterious. The Zen nature of the poems' inquiries and observations-with their allusiveness and open-endedness-bear up under many readings, defying prized Western rationality and yielding a surprisingly rich range of tones, moods, and insights. -- Elizabeth Spires, poet and author of The Wave-Maker and Now the Green Blade Rises [Cho Oh-Hyun] has created a new tradition of Korean sijo poetry. -- Choi Yearn-hong The Korea Times While some of the poems embrace the kind of open-ended imagery commonly associated with Buddhist poetry, Cho innovates in this volume with narrative techniques that engage the senses and the imagination. World Literature Today

• Contents Preface Introduction, by Kwon Youngmin Bitter Flower Daydream Distant Holy Man Elm Tree & Moon Desire, Deeper than the Marrow What I've Always Said The Sound of Ancient Wood The Dance & the Pattern Spring Musan's Ten Bulls 1. Searching for the Bull 2. Finding the Footprints 3. Seeing the Bull 4. Catching the Bull 5. Taming the Bull 6. Riding the Bull Home 7. The Bull Transcended 8. Both Bull & Self Transcended 9. Reaching the Source 10. Return to Society Regarding My Penmanship Weekend Scrawl Wild Foxes Hoarse Speaking Without Speaking 1 Speaking Without Speaking 2 Speaking Without Speaking 3 Speaking Without Speaking 4 Speaking Without Speaking 5 Speaking Without Speaking 6 Waves What the Northeast Wind Said 1 What the Northeast Wind Said 2 What The Southeast Wind Said Ancient Rules for Everyman 3. Amdu-Drowned Man 4. Joju's Great Death 11. Gaesa Entering the Bath 13. Chuimi's Zen Gong Buddha Children of Namsan Valley Walking in Place The Path of Love At the Razor's Edge Crime & Punishment Today's Beaming The Way to Gyerimsa Temple Jikjisa Temple Travel Diary 1. The Way Forward 2. Not Two Gates 3. Sitting Buddha 4. Blue Crane-Zen Master Yeongheo 5. Stone Lamp 6. Cold Lamp-Master White Water 7. Mind Moon Tales from the Temple 2. The Seagulls & the East Sea 3. Two Squirrels 16. The Cry of Wild Ducks 25. The Otter & the Hunter 29. The Green Frog The Way to Biseul Mountain 2007-Seoul at Noon 2007-Seoul at Night Wild Ducks & Shadow Winter Mountain Beasts A Day at Old Fragrance Hall Bodhidharma 1 Bodhidharma 2 Bodhidharma 3 Bodhidharma 4 Bodhidharma 5 Bodhidharma 6 Bodhidharma 7 Bodhidharma 8 Bodhidharma 9 Bodhidharma 10 Sunset, Bay of Incheon The Sea Words of a Boatman Moments I Wished Would Linger You and I: Our Outcry You and I: Our Lamentation Siblings When the Dawn Comes Down A Fistful of Ashes Holding on to a Finger When the Thunder God Came to My Body Opening the Mountain-Side Window Proximation Sun & Moon Arising, Passing, Attachment The Wind that Once Wept in the Pine Grove Gwanseum This Body of Mine The Day I Try Dying As I Look Upon Myself Waning Landscape At the Tomb of King Seondeok Forest New Shoots Early Spring Three Views of Spring The Sound of My Own Cry All the Same at Journey's End Scarecrow Days Living on the Mountain Vapors My Lifelines Embers (Afterword) Translator's Afterword Acknowledgments