I See You Like I See a Flower
ISBN: 978-971-508-905-0
Written by: Na Tae Joo
Translated by Maria Kristina Carla Rico & Kyungmin Bae
Published: 2017 (original), 2022 (English Translation)
Language: English
176 pages | 500 grams | 6 by 7.5 inches
To see its beauty,
to feel its loveliness.
The collection of Na Tae Joo’s most popular poems that resonated through different generations online, I See You Like I See A Flower, carrier of South Korea’s Nation’s Most Favorite Poem, Grass Flower, is finally available in English!
With sentimental poetry about happiness, life, longing, love, and sadness, I See You Like I See A Flower continuously captures the hearts of people from different generations.
- As seen from popular K-Dramas - A Poem A Day, Encounter, and School 2013
- Resonated with hundreds of thousands around the world, including Korean Actors and K-pop Idols!
- Translated in Indonesia, Japan, and Thailand
- Sold over 500,000 copies and more!
I See You Like I See A Flower is a collection of Na Tae Joo’s most popular poems that circulated blogs, cafes, and Twitter.
Each poem is carefully curated while considering the choices of readers. He believes that the readers are the ones who choose the masterpiece of a poet.
In this book of poetry, we discover beauty in its simplest form, and just as how we think flowers are precious the more we look at them, we unearth the importance of things we’ve always seen as insignificant.
“It is a wonderful blessing and joy for someone like me who has been writing poetry for a long time. Because really good poetry should be a work that is selected and supported by more people across classes, generations, and times. If my poetry remains in the world and reaches the readers' hands, I think that I will become a person who will not die even if I die.”
Na Tae Joo (b. 1945) is an award-winning, esteemed poet from South Korea. He became a poet in 1971 and won the New Year’s Literary Award of the Seoul Shimbun (Korea’s oldest daily newspaper). Since then, he has published over 129 books of original poetry collections, prose, essays, and fairy tales.
In the Japanese translation of I See You Like I See A Flower, Na Tae Joo recognized the following prolific actors who recognized his works and contributed to the success of I See You Like I See A Flower.
"In the end, even popular celebrities have come to like this collection of poems. The celebrity who likes my poetry the most is the handsome actor Lee Jong-suk. In 2012, Lee Jong-suk read my poem “Grass Flower” in the drama “School 2013” in which he appeared, and after that, he published a photo book with me."
"After that, I saw a photo of Jisoo of BLACKPINK holding this book of poetry when she went to the airport, and I saw an article saying that RM of BTS, a world-class vocal group produced by Korea, also liked this book."
"The most impactful thing is that in 2018, the book, I See You Like I See A Flower, appeared in the popular TvN K-drama, Encounter, starring Park Bogum and Song Hye Kyo. The book appeared several times in the drama."
He is currently the chairman of Poets Association of Korea and has published a new collection of poetry and painting with Girls’ Day’s Yura entitled, Travel in Different Seasons: Harmony of an Old Poet and a Young Painter Met on the Journey of Life.
