Copenhagen’s Bicycle Review
By: Karolina Gajdeczka
Before Copenhagen’s Bicycle, Yearn Hong Choi wrote two other poetry books in English, including Autumn Vocabulariesand Moon of New York. Like his other books, Copenhagen’s Bicycle, Yearn Hong Choi’s third poetry book in English,includes moments captured from an immigrant’s life. This book also includes scenes of travel from his retirement.
Copenhagen’s Bicycle moves the reader with a sense of fluidity and wonder. It invites the reader to join in on these senses and the poet’s same journey: “Why don’t you pedal your bicycle to the Congressional building/ and then to the coffee shop/ when you visit Copenhagen?” as he did. The sense of discovery—of a new place, of a new lover, of a new season—transports the reader fluidly from line to line, poem to poem in this collection, the way water moves in and out of the imagery in the poems.
Each poem is written in free verse, most without rhyming, and the line length varies with ease, sometimes shifting into prose poetry. The first three sections introduce themes used as images in the last three sections, while the middle section transports the reader from reflections on leaving a place, settling in a new one, to traveling somewhere else. The structure of the poems as well as the structure of the collection overall gracefully complement the subject matter of Choi’s poetry.
The book begins the journey in the first three sections with the idea of coming and going: an immigrant’s life, the ebb and flow of water: “Welcome home brothers and sisters! / Welcometo our harbor/Of New Hope, New Dream and New Ambition”; “written messages are coming to here from somewhere and/ Going out of here to there”; “Eodo is there/ nothing but waves”;“Come rolling, mighty surf! / Come surging, sea, arise!” Streams of consciousness reveal Choi’s fascination with seaside scenes and waterscapes, perhaps as a deep part of his nostalgia for the homeland.
Images of earth and mother are also introduced, along with more wistfulness for the poet’s home country: “Do you know/ my mother is still alive, / next to me?”; “Whenever I climb up my mountain/ my mother is always greeting me”; “She became a young, beautiful woman;/ Ever since then she became my home country”; “When you cannot handle solitude, / walk into the woods and talk to the trees and birds.” Also, the four seasons and passion are introduced as themes: “Suddenly, /cherry blossom, / yellow flower fence”; “The butterflies are whispering to the flowers”; “In the snowy night, / a poet can hear/ the sound of a young woman/ undressing”; “Love begins when the flower blooms, and / ends when the flower withers.” These themes and images are seamlessly tied together as moments of transition and discovery.
The fourth section in the book introduces a sense of wonder in the world through a traveler’s eyes—“Another amazing scene!"—in the title poem, which acts as a bridge from the first three sections to the last three, startling the reader with a sense of wonder and wanderlust. The remaining three sections reflect on experiences of travel, in which the poet uses images that moved him to remember his home country in the first three sections: the mountains, and the water: “The mountain is a line, so is the sky, earth, sea, clouds, men and women, and rain”; “Oh, I now know why Inca people live on the high altitude of the Andes”; “When the sun rises, / they go out to the cliffs/ to see the ships returning home, / and watch the sea all day/ in quietness.”
Overall, the collection is filled with beautiful memories captured in images that linger with you. The simplicity of the language in these poems captures an innocent sense of wonder and longing throughout the collection, and paints vividly scenes from an immigrant’s life.
Karolina Gajdeczka will be published in the Susquehanna Review. She has worked on the staff of the Potomac Review and Maryland Life. Karolina received the William Heath Award for outstanding achievement in creative writing. She was the advisory editor to Lighted Corners magazine.
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Dr. Yearn Hong Choi, Copenhagen’s Bicycle, Baltimore: PublishAmerica, 110 pages
Copenhagen’s Bicycle is the third poetry book in English by a Korean-American poet published by PublishAmerica. His two poetry books, Autumn Vocabularies (1990) and Moon of New York (2008) received good reviews from the United States and Korea. Copenhagen’s Bicycle as his two previous poetry books, contains his love and prayers toward his home country ( for example, My Country, Mountains, Mother, Army Second Lieutenant, Renate Hong, a German woman married to a North Korean student, East Sea, and White Deer Lake in Cheju Island) and his adopted country, USA (for example, Immigrant Dream, Economy, Yosemite National Party, Arizona Desert, American Tragedy, and TJ, his grandson). However, this poetry book has one section with his travel poems to Scandinavian countries, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, China, Peru, and Alaska. Copenhagen’s Bicycle, the title poem, is his admiration of Danish politicians who are riding their bicycle to the Congressional work. He saw bicycles in the parking lot of the Danish Congressional building. He also observed the wind power turbines in the seashore. From his Scandinavian trip, he paid attention and produced environmental poems for nature conservation and the “small is beautiful” culture. Dr. Choi has been an environmentalist throughout his life.
Recently, has published his travel essay book in Korean by the same title which is available from bookstores in Korea.
The heart of this poetry book may be his lyrical poems such as Hummingbird, Solitude, Autumn Woods, First Snow Fall, Poet’s Lover, Golf and Surfer among others. Ten illustrations for ten poems are making this book attractive.
A coupe of poems from Jeju Island---Eodo (Ieodo) and White Deer Lake at the top of Mt. Hall--- are also included in this poetry book. Dr. Choi is a visiting scholar of Society of Ieodo Research. They are:
White Deer Lake
The legendary story of white deer playing with a saint
Has been long hidden by fog or foggy rain.
The mysterious lake revealed
Under sunshine,
After the foggy rain in one summer afternoon was gone
On my fifth trip to Mt. Halla.
I could see the lake from the peak of the mountain:
How fortunate I was!
Fog in the crater was suddenly removed
At 2 in the afternoon.
Water in the bottom of the lake was good enough
For the deer and the saint to drink.
I suddenly see the lake
A beautiful nude of Venus
On the sea shell.
All precious things hidden by the bridal veil and
Emerges briefly to please the naked eyes
Of the poet.
*White Deer Lake was located at the peak of Mt. Halla, the highest mountain in South Korea, 1950-meter from sea level.
Eodo
Eodo is the last port of call
All fishermen visit
And their boats anchor in.
At the end of the sea,
There is Eodo.
It is an Utopia, next world of Cheju fishermen and women.
Their dream is surfing on high white waves
Accompanied by the seagulls,
Attracting schools of fish and harvesting them.
Eodo is only one island
Which does not appear above water on any maps
In this world.
So no one can steal it from Cheju people.
It is a secret island.
Eodo is the last port of call
All fishermen visit
And their boats anchor in.
His poetry book is hoped to be shared with his home country people as well. He hopes this one to be shared by his neighbors near and far who love poetry—words with soul and aesthetics. This book is available from amazon.com
----Sun Mo Ryoo, professor emeritus of Kyunggi University
