These transformations are derived from the "poetic residue" collected translations, which were treated as a corpus for practices like erasure and computational text manipulation. In addition to the translation selected for the [performance]({{% ref "poems/performance/index.md" %}}), these transformations were read to present new lenses on what already exists: a poem with many interpretations.


 Materials for The Azaleas Project were used in the September 17, 2026 [Unpoetry at the Frye](https://fryemuseum.org/calendar/event/unpoetry-frye-september-2026) performance by María Dolores A. Matienzo (percussion and text), Tom Scully (guitar and prepared piano), and Noelle K. Chun (movement). The performance is an ekphrastic response to the [Lotus L. Kang](https://lotuslkang.com) exhibition [*I hear the hollow boom of time*](https://fryemuseum.org/exhibitions/lotus-l-kang-i-hear-hollow-boom-time) at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Washington. In consultation with Eric M. Acosta (videographer and editing) of [Unpoetry](https://unpoetry.net) and Anna Buxton and Kathryn Reyes of the Frye, the performers spent time with Kang's exhibition, work, and artist talks. Through this process, the performers prepared a [score](score.pdf). {{< figure src="score.png" alt="The performers' score for the performance. A series of boxes in 9 columns, with instructions in text. The progression from left to right depicts time." link="score.pdf" caption="The performer's score, prepared August 17, 2026.">}} Kang has written and spoken about the influence of Kim Sowol's poem on her work, especially her *Azaleas* series of sculptures. Kang's timing of the mechanism for the large-scale replica of a 35mm rotary film dryer in the *Azaleas* series follows the 7&middot;5 syllabic rhythm of Kim Sowol's "Azaleas" and Kim Hyesoon's "Already." The performers thus decided to include the translation of "Azaleas" within the performance and to create the [transformations]({{% ref "poems/transformations/_index.md" %}}), or new residual poetic texts created from the corpus of gathered [translations]({{% ref "poems/translations/_index.md" %}}). Given capacity constraints, it was not possible to hold the live performance within the exhibition itself. With the assistance of Eric M. Acosta and Tori Winkler (videographers), they filmed a version of their performance inside Kang's sculpture *Azaleas III*. For the live performance, the performers responded to the filmed version and performed along themselves while the film was projected in the auditorium. The title of Kang's exhibition comes from a line in Clarice Lispector's novel *Água Viva*: > Ouço o ribombo oco do tempo. É o mundo surdamente se formando. Se eu ouço é porque existo antes da formação do tempo. 'Eu sou' é o mundo. Mundo sem tempo. A minha consciência agora é leve e é ar. O ar não tem lugar nem época. O ar é o não-lugar onde tudo vai existir. O que estou escrevendo é música do ar. A formação do mundo. Pouco a pouco se aproxima o que vai ser. O que vai ser já é. > > (I hear the hollow boom of time. It’s the world deafly forming. If I can hear that is because I exist before the formation of time. “I am” is the world. World without time. My consciousness now is light and it is air. Air has neither place nor time. Air is the non-place where everything will exist. What I am writing is the music of the air. The formation of the world. Slowly what will be approaches. What will be already is.) This combined performance — of what will be that already is — provides what Kang refers to in her own work as "resistance to singularity through repetition." Through this method, the performers accepted a logistical, curatorial, and safety constraint as one that ultimately informs the collected work of performance more thoroughly. Similarly, the poetic residue in the transformations of the translations of Kim Sowol's "Azaleas" incorporated into the performance revisits and complicates the interpretations of what is already is: a multiplicity of meanings, translations, rhythm, tonality, and movement. 

 This section collects English translations of Kim Sowol's poem [**진달래꽃**]({{% ref "진달래꽃" %}})(jindallaekkot). All translations whenever possible are sourced with a citation to their original source, or where the original source is not known, the source in which the translation was found. Both the full text of the translation and the source can be found by clicking through to the individual page for each translation. As is true of poetry in translation, some of these translations are unconventional, iconoclastic, or introduce new meanings into the text. The expansive selection of these translations is intended to be inclusive and does not directly address the "correctness" of these translations, but rather to show as both David R. McCann and An Sonjae have written, the evolving cultural and historical contexts in which poems are translated. If you know of other translations of the poem, please contact the [site's maintainer](mailto:azaleas@imprecision.art). 

 나(na) 보기가(bogiga) 역겨워(yeokgyeowo) 가실(gasil) 때에는(ttaeeneun) 말없이(mareopsi) 고이(goi) 보내(bonae) 드리우리다 (deuriurida) 영변에(yeongbyeone) 약산(yaksan) 진달래꽃(jindallaekkot) 아름(areum) 따다(ttada) 가실(gasil) 길에(gire) 뿌리우리다(ppuriurida) 가시는(gasineun) 걸음(georeum) 걸음(georeum) 놓인(noin) 그(geu) 꽃을(kkocheul) 사뿐히(sappunhi) 즈려밟고(jeuryeobalgo) 가시옵소서(gasiopsoseo) 나(na) 보기가(bogiga) 역겨워(yeokgyeowo) 가실(gasil) 때에는(ttaeeneun) 죽어도(jugeodo) 아니(ani) 눈물(nunmul) 흘리우리다(heulliurida)