Hwang Chin-i

My book on Korean poetry is late back to the library, but it's worth 25 cents to be able to write out one of the poems before I return it. It's by Hwang Chin-i [c. 1506-1544], according to the book "the most famous and the most accomplished of all Korean women poets." The following poem reminds me a little of Ono no Komachi. There's some sudden flash of red underwear in it.

I cut in two
A long November night, and
Place half under the coverlet,
Sweet-scented as a spring breeze.
And when he comes, I shall take it out,
Unroll it inch by inch, to stretch the night.

Peter H. Lee, Poems from Korea: A Historical Anthology
(Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, East-West Center Book, 1974), 77.