Today.

Musan

 To the irrigation ditch, where all the carp
 and minnow lived Came murky water--not clean, And with that flow,
those little bastard
 eels-- It's that kind of day: a dragon's belch 

Translations from the Korean By Heinz Insu Fenkl

Master Cho Oh-hyun, who writes under the pen name "Musan," was born in 1932 in Miryang in the South Gyeongsang Province of Korea. He has lived in the mountains since he became a novice monk at the age of seven. Over the years, he has written over a hundred poems, including many in sijo form. In 2007 he received the Cheong Chi-yong Literary Award for his book Distant Holy Man. The lineage holder of the Mt. Gaji school of Korean Nine Mountains Zen, he is in retreat as the head of Baekdamsa Temple at Mt. Seoraksan. His work has appeared in The Asia Literary Review, Asymptote, AZALEA, and Buddhist Poetry Review.

Heinz Insu Fenkl, born in 1960 in Bupyeong, Korea, is a novelist, translator, and editor. His autobiographical novel, Memories of My Ghost Brother, was named a Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" selection in 1996 and a PEN/Hemingway Award finalist in 1997. His most recent prose translation, Yi Mun-yol's short story, "An Anonymous Island," was published in the September 12, 2011, issue of the New Yorker.