Cheapest France in Town

The elusive, distant, almost disembodied voice of Korean poet Seo Jung Hak's English-language debut examines interiorities that seem familiar, yet whose ordinariness rises to the level of the uncanny. Inspired by the commodification of arts, emotions, and ideologies, these poems - written over a span of 18 years from 1999 to 2017 - parody the very act of writing amid worn-out rhetorical tropes, in a tone that is at times sinisterly witty and at others ominously blithe.