In his poetry collection, Flatfish, Moon Tae-jun offers an aesthetic that emphasizes the author’s exploration of the inner self. At times sparse and allusive, his poems use blank space and other stylistic considerations to convey a voice and thought that ranges from the contemplative to the surreal and absurd. Moon’s poems suggest Buddhist ideologies, natural images, and Korean  temples, as the collection explores individual experiences within the context of a search for understanding a greater whole.

While Korea is certainly the setting of these poems, the works remain largely free of cultural-specific imagery and are, instead, naturalistic or universal. This first bilingual edition is a critical resource for students, poets, translators, and general readers alike.