Night-Sky Checkerboard introduces English-language readers to the imagistic lyricism of a Korean master at the peak of his powers. As a young poet fascinated by Modernism, Oh Sae-young attempted to reproduce the inner landscapes of the dislocated self produced by industrial society before arriving at the more existentialist concerns that dominate his work today.

The present volume, fluidly translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé, reflects Oh Sae-young’s harmonious fusion of image with idea, with woodpeckers pecking secret coded messages, the farmer finding the ground’s erogenous zones, and a cloud factory on strike.