Poetry
A Small Museum of Trauma. 10 rooms.
Each collection is a different room. A different experiment inside the frame. All poetry. All on the wall. The frame never breaks — it explodes from within.
Recommended for Translation — 10 Collections
Room 1 — Base Camp
Catcalling (2018)
Violence, gender, diaspora.
The experiment: the language of violence inside poetry. English edition published by Open Letter Books (2021, translated by Soje). NYT review, PEN America longlist. 16 printings, 20,000+ copies in Korea.
English edition published · translated by Soje
Room 2 — Portable Museum
Letters, Obscene and Incomplete (2021)
All-typography. A museum you carry.
The experiment: typography inside poetry. Where conceptual art meets writing. 32 poems. 8 printings, 5,000+ copies.
Korean · 8 printings
Room 3 — Hell is Home
Home Sweet Home (2023)
Home as hell. Family violence, diaspora, immigration.
The experiment: fable-concept poetry. Illustrations by Yeon Yeoin (poster artist for Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice). First interior illustrations in Moonji's 40-year history. 5,000+ copies. Aladin Editor's Pick. Korean original stocked at Foyles, London — the only poetry title in the Korean section.
Korean · 5,000+ copies
Room 4 — Board Game
If You Call My Name, I Die (Fall 2026)
Monopoly concept. No first person. Global stories.
The experiment: a board game inside poetry. The dice roll through 20+ countries. A Bangladeshi mother falls from the seventh floor and the police call it suicide. A Chernobyl liquidator shovels graphite—you read his poem in 90 seconds, the time he lived. In Argentina, Diego hits Valentina because he loves her. 60% of the pieces are foreign. The game ends at Bankruptcy: fifth floor, Christmas night, 605,000 won. Translation passed through AI as a deliberate layer—to localize accents and dialects, because there is no single English in the world.
Moonji · Fall 2026 · Full English manuscript ready
Room 5 — Asylum
Tsundere Real Alpaca (Contracted)
Psychiatric hospital. Inspired by Nellie Bly.
The experiment: psychiatric diagnosis inside poetry. A poet named Lee Soho is admitted to Ward 13. Each poem is a different condition in first person. Wernicke–Korsakoff confabulates murders. ADHD cannot finish a title. Dysgraphia misspells a love letter. The DSM-5 is the table of contents. Discharge is impossible. The reader becomes the next patient.
Contracted · Full English manuscript ready
Room 6 — Error Room
Player Not Found (Contracted)
Every player is named Lee Soho. Every death is a system error.
The experiment: video game code inside poetry. Korea's erased histories — comfort women, Sewol, Gwangju, forced labor — recorded as error logs, cheat codes, boss battles, and game-overs. Every victim is Lee Soho. Every level is unbeatable.
Contracted
Room 7 — War
Don't Pretend It's Sunny (Contracted)
SF poetry. New Seoul, 2187. The Crimson Empire invades.
The experiment: a poem sequence on how war destroys the person, not the city. In 2187, the Crimson Empire invades New Korea. Speaker Lee Soho loses her humanity across five parts—Start, Occupation, Resistance, Collapse, Liberation. The structure is circular: the war ends, but the person never leaves it. The last poem connects to the first.
Contracted
Room 8 — Lab
Lip I So Top Summer Sonic (Contracted)
Chemistry equations. Each poem kills with a different element.
The experiment: chemistry inside poetry. The periodic table becomes a murder manual. "Perfect Crime Recipe" repeats through the collection. The title hides isotope, isomer, isotonic inside Lee Soho's name. Same name, different molecular weight.
Contracted
Room 9 — Specimen
Freakshow Geek Psycho Medley (Contracted)
Language destruction, maximum experiment. Not logical, but painful.
The experiment: how far can language be destroyed before pathos stops arriving? In 2055, humans are gene-edited and sold by tier. Lee Soho is Specimen FAIL-2847—defective, marked for disposal. Poems arrive as corporate reports, C++ code, security protocols, and disposal manuals. Meaning is destroyed. Pathos survives.
Contracted
Room 10 — Physics
Even Sorrow Could Be Science (Manuscript Complete)
Domestic violence measured in physics. Rogue planet sequence.
The experiment: physics as the language of domestic violence. Heat death is a husband’s insurance scheme. LIGO cannot measure the grief in the next room. A rogue planet is a woman dragging a suitcase into lightless space. Every equation is a bruise. Not yet contracted in Korea — available for English-language markets first.
Available for English first