[Feature] How Bodies of Poets Resist the Capitalocene / Ra Hee Duk
The Quarterly Changbi 187, Spring 2020
Abstract
After introducing the concept of the Capitalocene, which understands the period of capitalist civilization as a kind of geological era, Ra Hee Duk illuminates poems by Baek Mu-san, Heo Su-Gyeong, and Kim Hyesoon in this context. These three poets’ worlds have similarly explored civilizational-level contradictions in life, labor, war, and violence, through the language of the body, which sensitively captures the dystopia of the Capitalocene. This article, which discusses how their poems have resisted those contractions, through close readings, is an example of how the poetic imagination and ecological crisis are not unrelated.