by Brother Anthony
The poems to be
introduced here were written between 1975and 1986; Kim Kwang-kyu has published
more works since then, but these are the poems which first made his reputation
in Korea, and which I have recently published in English translation. Professor
Kim was born in Seoul in 1941, and he is at present a professor in the German
department of Hanyang University, having studied German language and literature
at Seoul National University and Munich. He published his first volume of poems
in the same year, 1975, as he published translations into Korean of poems by
Heinrich Heine and Gunter Eich; any one interested in possible Western
influences in Professor Kim's work would also have to know that he has
translated poems by Bertold Brecht.
As we begin to read
Professor Kim's work, a useful term for what he is doing may be found in the
word 'an anatomy'. The 17th century English poet John Donne used
this word as an image for a close scrutiny, corresponding to what people today
often rather dauntingly call an 'analysis'. Both these terms are images
borrowed from the physical sciences; when chemists analyse, they break down a
substance into its component elements in order to be able to describe in detail
what it is made of. Donne's word 'anatomize' was borrowed from medical science
and is potentially gruesome, suggesting as it does people watching the
systematic dissection of a dead body (Donne's step-father was a doctor). The
work of the anatomist, though, is not limited to the discovery of causes of
death. Through autopsies, doctors discover the physical mechanics of our being,
and this in turn enables others to find ways of restoring similarly diseased
bodies to health.
Kim Kwang-kyu has
dissected his way through much diseased tissue. His study is the sick body of
modern society, and his poems are suggestive of diagnoses that are also valid
far beyond the confines of this Peninsula; in many poems we have a survey of
the main symptoms, in some we glimpse prescriptions, perspectives of healing,
but after reading others we wonder if there can be any cure! For the disease
dissected and depicted with such subtle wit in Professor Kim's poems will need
more than aspirins to make it better. At the same time, it is not possible to
respond to this poetry from the sidelines; it only really works when we
recognize ourselves in it!
I want to begin with
one of his earliest poems, a prose poem that seems to need no initial
explanation:
Spirit
Mountain
In my
childhood village home there was a mysterious
mountain --
Spirit Mountain, it was called -- and no one had ever
climbed it.
Spirit
Mountain could not be seen in daytime.
With thick
mist shrouding its lower half and clouds
that covered
what rose above we could only guess dimly where it
lay.
By night too
Spirit Mountain could not be seen clearly.
In the
moonlight and starlight of bright cloudless
nights its
dark form might be glimpsed but yet it was impossible
to tell its
shape or its height.
One day
seized with a sudden longing to see Spirit
Mountain --
it had never left my heart -- I took an express bus
back to my
home village but strange to say Spirit Mountain had
utterly
vanished and the now unfamiliar village folk I questioned
swore there
was no such mountain in those parts.
This poem is not, I
think, mainly about a person's disappointment on returning to childhood haunts.
The mountain of the poem was no private dream; in childhood it was a vision
shared by all in the village, transcending the ordinary but at the same time
transforming the ordinary by its presence. The loss is not individual, but
collective, and it has been brought about by all the violent changes that Korea
has been subjected to. The speaker has long been away, living in the city, but
even in the village there has been a break in continuity, a destruction of
tradition, so that the strangers now living there have lost sight of anything
transcending their ordinary material existence, and have no memories of
anything else ever having existed.
Urbanization has
robbed Korea of so much humanity, and many of Kim Kwang-kyu's poems are city-poems:
Going home in
the evening
We gave up
any thought of flying long ago
These days we
don't even try to run
we dislike
walking so we try to ride
(We mostly
travel about by bus or subway)
Once on board
we all try to get a seat
Once seated
we lean back snoozing
Not that we
are tired
but every
time money-making is over
our heads
become atrophied
scales sprout
all over our bodies
Our blood has
grown cold
But still
with half-open eyes
our practised
feet take us home
We return
every evening to our homes
like reptiles
returning to their swamp
Professor Kim invites
us to recognize the sub-human sides of modern life; the person speaking in his
poems does not moralize from outside or above, but offers a little vignette of
an only too familiar experience. I suppose that for many today, the private car
has replaced the bus and subway,
but perhaps the reptile is only more numbly headed for the swamp,
sitting in the middle of a traffic-jam.
Professor Kim's poems
are in the tradition of social satire, and in that tradition the portrayal by
negative examples often goes hand-in-hand with positive visions drawn from an
elsewhere closer to Nature, as in this poem:
Ducks
Holy bird!
Never ever
perching
in branches
of trees of comfort
those trees
that grow straightest
if not
completely vertical
that generate
no electricity
A duck is not
one for lying down or getting up
Quietly
wandering over winter river water
it merely
repeats simple gestures
It has not
picked up any complicated habits
Sometimes it
leaves water prints
in the
snow-covered ice
and if an
earthquake comes
riding the
whirlwind it flies up
up into the
sky
casting a
final shadow
destined to
become a fossil
on the land
of death
Most perfect
bird!
The place
from which the duck comes flying
and to which
it returns
is a place I
have come too far from
Borne on
trains traversing continents
crossing
oceans by aeroplane
I have
travelled so far in any case
that now it
is impossible for me
to cross that
far horizon and return
How happy is
the duck returning
with
unthinking wing-beats
whenever the
seasons change
If I am ever
to return to that place
I must first
forget with groans of pain
all the
language I have so arduously learned
With far
greater difficulty than in the gaining
I must lose
one by one all the things I know
Useless the
pitiful body's writhing
as it tries
to get up and get up again
then lie down
and lie down again
At last I
shall have to set out alone
How envious
then is the life of the duck
that flies
and flies then drops plop dead
Blessed bird
serenely
frequenting that far-off place
I can never
return to so long as I live
There are
times when I long to be a duck
Such poems do
not seem to require much commentary, but the reader should notice the very
strong lyric element in that last poem. The 'poetic' is a very difficult word
to define, but in the Korean literary context it is important to stress that in
these poems the poetic and the social are reconciled. In the past, and even
today, they are too often considered to be irreconcilable. Next, the poem which
gives its title to the whole collection:
Faint shadows
of love
At the end of
the year of the April Uprising
we met at
five in the afternoon
happily
clasped hands in greeting
then sitting
in a chill fireless room
our breaths
condensing white
we engaged in
heated discussions
Foolishly
enough we believed
we were
living for the sake of something
for something
that had nothing to do with politics
The meeting
ended inconclusively and that evening
drinking grog
at Hyehwadong Rotary
we worried in
a pure-minded way
about
problems of love and spare-time jobs
and military
service
and each of
us sang as loud as he could
songs no one
listened to
songs no one
could imitate
Those songs
we sang for no reward
rose up into
the winter sky
and fell as
shooting stars
Eighteen
years later at last we met again
all wearing
neckties
each of us
had become something
We had become
the older generation
living in
dread of revolution
We chipped in
to cover the cost of the party
exchanged
news of our families
and asked the
others how much they were earning
Anxious about
the soaring cost of living
happily
deploring the state of the world
expertly
lowering our voices
as we
discussed rumours
We were all
of us living for the sake of living
this time no
one sang
Leaving
abundant drink and side-dishes behind us
noting one
another's new phone numbers we parted
A few went
off to play poker
A few went
off to dance
A few of us
walked sadly
along the
university street we used to frequent
Clutching
rolled-up calendars under our arms
in a place
returned to after long wanderings
in that place
where our love gone by had bled
unfamiliar
buildings had appeared suspiciously
the roadside
plane trees stood in their old places
and a few
remaining dry leaves trembled
sending
shudders up our spines
Aren't you
ashamed?
Aren't you
ashamed?
As the wind's
whisper flowed about our ears
we
deliberately made middle-aged talk about our health
and took one
step deeper into the swamp
One of the
experiences reflected in these words is that of finding oneself middle-aged,
with youth lying back there, lost in the past. For the Korean intellectual of
Professor Kim's generation, though, this implies a shared social experience.
The memory of having been a student in April 1960, as he was, means that the loss
of youth is paralleled by the loss within Korean society of that vision which
drove the students down the streets in April of that year with a burning hope:
a hope that guns extinguished in some, time and repression in the rest.
Dictatorship ensued,
and there was the challenge of learning to survive as a human being within the
silence, the supression of truth and of divergent opinion which it demanded:
The land of
mists
In the land
of mists
always
shrouded in mist
nothing ever
happens
And if something
happens
nothing can
be seen
because of
the mist
for if you
live in mist
you get
accustomed to mist
so you do not
try to see
Therefore in
the land of mists
you should
not try to see
you have to
hear things
for if you do
not hear you cannot live
so ears keep
growing bigger
People like
rabbits
with ears of
white mist
live in the
land of mists
Non-Koreans who were
not here in the late '70s and early '80s may not see at once why long ears were
necessary; but even today, when there is much more liberty of expression, the
art of getting to the truth of things is scarcely easier. The military 'put its
foot down' in 1961, as we would say in rather too humorous English, and in the
little poem that follows, you should recall the expression:
Death of a baby
crab
One baby crab
caught
together with its mother
tumbles out
of the hawker's basket
while the big
crabs fixed in a straw rope
foam and wave
aimless legs
It crawls off
sideways sideways over the roadway
in quest of
past days of hide-and-seek in the mud
and the
freedom of the sea
It pricks up
its eyes and gazes all around
then dies
squashed across the roadway
run over by a
speeding army truck
Where the
baby crab's remains rot in the dust
no one sees
how the light of glory shines
In the
deathly silence that the Korean dictators demanded, it took courage to speak,
and wit to outwit the censors. By his poems which we might call 'beast fables',
Professor Kim joins hands with Aesop and La Fontaine, or perhaps rather with
Swift. These are allegories, designed for readers who have grown the long ears
which are not unrelated to those Jesus demands: 'those who have ears to hear,
let them hear'. What do you hear, I wonder, in the following poem?
The summer
there were no cicadas
One cicada
was singing in a persimmon tree
then flew off
but was abruptly checked in mid-air
Ahah a
spider's web spreading wide!
The spider
hiding under the edge of the roof
had the
struggling cicada tied up in a flash
no point in
mentioning anything like
conscience or
ideas
no place for
regret or excuses
At the end of
seven years' training
the cicada's
lovely voice
after
scarcely seven days
ended up as a
spider's supper
If you're
caught like that you've had it
The cicadas
stopped singing
and flying
It was a
remarkably long hot summer
In these poems, then,
there are evocations of the brutal slaughter of the young by the merciless, of
the young who have dreams and songs in which Spirit Mountain still rises
mysterious above, an image of the 'freedom of the sea'. It is by now clear, I
hope, that we are dealing with something far removed from the 'protest poem' of
strident tone and indignation. The deaths are
not the main
point, though, tragic and impoverishing though they are. It is more important
for the poet and the reader to reflect on what hope is left:
Roadside
trees in April
Their tops
were cut off long ago
so as not to
touch the power lines
This year
even their limbs have been lopped
so they
cannot sway if a spring breeze blows
and only the
trunks remain like torsos
suffocating
and grim
When the
lilac perfume deepens
memories of
another April day return
but now every
trailing branch has been cut off
so that the
street-side weeping willows
lined up in
rows
unable even
to unfold new leaves
seething with
impatience but
unable to
utter even a cry
are putting
out leaves from their trunks
Once again
Nature offers the poet an image of resistance, of survival, of a stubborn
refusal by life to be put down by brute force. And since the theme is hope, it
is natural that other poems evoke that hope in ever more lyrical images:
Evening in
May
Borne on the
early summer breeze
gloomy news
Emerging from
some house or other
clumsy piano
sounds
Backhaus is
already dead
now
Rubinstein is getting old
but
regardless of adults' despair
there are
children beginning Bayer I
and because
of this hope
that cannot
be wrapped up
in newspaper
and thrown away
darkness
drops shamefaced
down every
quiet street
I suppose
there ought to be a footnote to remind the unpianoed reader that Bayer I is the
classic first manual for the would-be pianist? I dislike footnotes, and believe
that the message is clear. Like Shakespeare and Jane Austen, Kim Kwang-kyu has
faith in the power of the new generations to redeem the terrible mess caused by
the failures of their parents.
In those days
Was there
anyone who didn't know?
What everyone
felt
What everyone
went through
Was there
anyone who didn't know?
In those days
everybody
knew
but pretended
not to know
What no one
could say
what no one
could write
was spoken
in our
language
written in
our alphabet
and
communicated
Was there
anyone who didn't know?
Don't speak
too glibly now times have changed
Stop and
think
In those days
what did you
do?
The question is a
sharp one, very awkward indeed for all those who did little to oppose the
insult to Korean dignity represented by the Fifth so-called Republic, whose
bald-headed leader seems to be evoked in the following:
Sketch of a
fetish
He is no
common man
definitely
not an ordinary man
Far more
lenient than a common man
far crueller
than an ordinary man
he is not
some meek kind of man
who endures
hardship patiently
deliberately
hiding his tears
He is not a
man who gazes at the moon
longing for
days gone by
Nimbly
seizing the ball
like a
goalkeeper before a tense crowd
he is not a
man who works all day
and then goes
home in the evening
He is not the
kind of man who keeps to his lane
for fear of
the traffic patrols
He is not a
man who speaks in words
as he takes
over all the best expressions
producing an
urn of white silence
He is not
someone who gazes
at the
endlessly rolling waves
and fathoms
the ocean's heart
He is not a
man who hastens
onwards at
dawn firm in the conviction
that
yesterday's I is alone believable
He is not the
kind of man who lowers his head
and silently
follows after
Taking up
sacred burdens beyond his power
and marching
on and on
he is
definitely not an ordinary man
not a common
man
in short not
a man at all
You must not think,
though, that our poet is therefore mute before the radical students, although
he certainly respects them, as most Koreans have done, until recently at least.
To them too he has sharp messages:
Old Marx
Look my young
friend
That's not
what history is like
it's not what
you think it's like
it's not
something that unfolds dialectically
and
literature too is not like that
it's not what
you think it's like
it's not
something that changes logically
You are young
it's ok if
you still don't know
but just
suppose that the moment
you finally
realize that really
history and
literature are not like that
comes when
you have already reached the age
where you can
no longer change anything
in your life?
Look my young
friend
Ideology in
the head
can never
become love in the heart
Even though
our opinions may differ
how fortunate
it is
that each one
of us lives our share
and how
unsatisfying
that each one
of us lives only once
then is dead
and gone
Even though
we die and become the past
history
remains as the present
and
literature honestly records
the
complexities of life in days gone by
Look my young
friend
Take care
that your
heart doesn't harden
before your
body has had time to grow old
Take care!
If Kim Kwang-kyu so
often evokes the spirit of the young, I think the following poem about April
1960 explains why:
No! Not so
All the pain
of the leaves
as they burst
in anguish
through their
hardened shells
and that of
the blooming azaleas
had become a
furious cry
on that day
the earth shook
as he raced
ahead of the others
then fell
near the Blue House
His satchel still
bulging
with lunchbox
and dictionary
robbed of his
bright smile
and supple
movements
he fell to
the roadway
never to rise
again
So did he die
in vain
in the
twentieth year of his youth?
No
Not at all
Since the day
he cried Drive them out
he has become
a lion eternally young
roaring
fiercely
on the
central campus lawn
he has become
a fountain
soaring
skywards
His surviving
companions sheepishly
graduated and
did their military service
got married
and had children so that
before you
knew it today they are
middle-aged
wage-earners
while he has
remained unchanging
a young
university student
attending
lectures regularly
absorbed in
impassioned debates
skillfully
pursuing the ball
Look there
and see his vital image
unswervingly
following truth
in his proud
successor
defending the
nation with his whole being
our promising
son
tending anew
the ideals
we had
forgotten
So it is
Since the day
he fell near the Blue House
endlessly
rising again
he races on
ahead of us
The challenges facing
Korean society are enormous, and unless this country can find deep reserves of
vision and inspiration, it may be overwhelmed by the scale of what is demanded
of it. The memory of the past offers a hope that again today the spark of that
same self-sacrifice and devotion will prevail.
I want here to look
at some poems in which Kim Kwang-kyu suggests a few of the ways in which modern
Korea has lost its soul:
Kim with
crutch
5 basement
levels
30 floors
above ground
150,000
square yards of floor space
When they
were doing the groundwork
for Seoul
Building
Kim did the
rough jobs
Up and down
the dizzying scaffolding
he carried
loads of gravel
he helped
with the plastering
he stuck on
tiles
he fixed
window-frames
Under Seoul
Building's foundation stone
lie some 3
years of Kim's hard life
and somewhere
up the dizzying emergency stairs
that go
snaking heavenwards
is stuck
the left leg
Kim lost there
Luckily he
was wearing a safety helmet
so he escaped
death by a hair
and six
months later
when Kim came
out of hospital on crutches
Seoul
Building towering aloft
had become a
well-known feature of the capital
Department
stores with every kind of everything
a hotel too
luxurious to sleep in
saunas and
restaurants and financial company offices
everywhere
white-clean men
busily banging
away on computers
girls looking
like screw-holes
noisily
chewing gum
and recalling
last night
with time too
bought and sold for cash
it was a TV
screen come alive
Wanting only
to see how that spot
at the
entrance to the emergency stairs
on the 13th floor
where he had
tripped and gone headlong
had been
finished off
Kim went
hobbling along
to visit his
former work-site
Suppose he
happened to meet Lee the welder
then they
might down a daytime glass
to celebrate
But at the
entrance to Seoul Building
a janitor
wearing a necktie
stopped him
saying people
without work can't come in here
and at the
back door where the garbage goes out
a fearsome
guard blocked his path
so Kim turned
away
Who knows
where he went?
Or there is
this very vivid anecdote, by which Kim Kwang-kyu shows his links with the
Korean short story form:
Familiar
shoes
Today in
front of the door of 1301
a pair of
shoes are lying
The heels are
worn down slantwise
the toes
scuffed pale
those old
shoes are undoubtedly
the ones he
wore
Who knows
perhaps when he was young
he slaved in
the fields
to bring up
his family
After losing
his old wife
he was
obliged to leave his village
and finally
ended up in his son's home
So he came to
live silently
secluded like
a criminal in a room
in New Town's
high-rise apartment blocks
His
grandchildren said he smelt and disliked him
his
daughter-in-law found doing his washing a bind
his son was
busy so they never met
Every night
he watched the tele through to the end
Each morning
going up the nearby hill
he would
count the notes in his wallet
and examine
his Farmers' Cooperative Savings Book
During the
day he would stare down
from the
veranda on the 13th floor
like a skinny
animal trapped in a cage
If he
encountered anyone in the elevator
he would
quickly turn his gaze aside
and say
nothing
He must have
lived here about ten months
and we never
once exchanged a greeting
but today his
familiar shoes
are lying
outside the door of 1301
There is no
avoiding the fact that at first glance, contemporary society offers little
hope. Once people are inside the 'system', they loose sight of Spirit Mountain,
and concentrate on staying safe, meekly conforming to society's demands:
Tightropes
There's no
audience and yet
everyone's
carrying a pole
and walking
the tightrope up in the air
where so many
ropes are crisscrossed
that if
there's no way ahead on one
they jump
across to the next
and even when
resting keep switching
seats from
one to another and back
but if you
fall
between the
ropes you
vanish
into the
unfathomed dark
With so many
ropes criss-crossing
it sometimes
looks like solid ground
but if you
blink one eye and
make a false
step
you've had it
so
trying hard
not to fall
controlling
their swaying bodies
everyone's
ever so cautiously
toeing the
line
At one level, you
might want to say that Kim Kwang-kyu is a poet of the absurd, refusing to admit
that the occupations with which most of the people around us are so busy have
any meaning at all in terms of human existence and human dignity. This kind of
position, defying as it does the naive polarities of activist or Marxist
creeds, has sometimes exposed him to criticism; satire has always been a risky
enterprise, once the audience begins to recognize itself in the portraits! Do
you find yourself in what follows, I wonder? I hope not:
Small men
They are
getting smaller
They keep
getting smaller
Before they
had finished growing
already they
had begun to get smaller
Before they
first fell in love as they thought about war
they began
to get smaller
The older
they get the smaller they get
As they break
off a yawn they get smaller
As they
shudder from terrifying nightmares
they get
smaller
Jumping every
time someone knocks they get smaller
Hesitating
even at a green light they get smaller
As they
lament that they do not grow old quickly enough
they get
smaller
As they bury
their heads in the newspaper
since the
world is so calm they get smaller
Standing
neatly in line wearing ties they get smaller
As they all
think about earning money doing business
they get
smaller
As they
listen to inaudible orders they get smaller
As they
repeat words identical as uniforms they get smaller
As they fight
with invisible enemies they get smaller
As they
attend multiple meetings and clap they get smaller
As they
consume luncheons of power and pick their teeth
they get
smaller
As they grow
fat and play golf they get smaller
As they go to
cocktail parties and drink scotch they get smaller
As they
embrace their wives now grown too stout they get smaller
They have
grown small
At last they
have grown small
They have
grown smaller than the quick-eyed sparrows
that fly up
to the eaves from the garden
Now they know
how to smoke while wearing a mask
They know how
to laugh louder than ever at unfunny moments
They know how
to be sincerely sad for long periods
about things
that are not sad
They know how
to keep happiness hidden deep down
They know how
to evaluate correctly each kind of anger
They know how
not to say what they really feel
and to cast
furious glances at one another
They know how
not to think of questions nobody asks
They know how
to count their blessings
every time
they pass a prison
They know how
each to take an umbrella and walk down alley-ways
when it
rains
Instead of
dancing in the plains
they know
how to sing falsetto in bars
When they
make love they know how to cut back on uneconomical
wearisome
caresses
Truly
they have
grown small
They have
grown quite small enough
all that is
left is their Name Occupation and Age
now they have
grown so small they are invisible
so they
cannot get any smaller
I have taken
you on a wandering journey through Kim Kwang-kyu's poems, and in conclusion I believe
that the word he would set at the end is hope, not despair. There are no easy
answers, but there is an almost intuitive trust in the mysterious processes of
Nature that underlie our human life:
An old old
question
Who doesn't
know that?
As time flows
on
flowers
wither
leaves fall
and one day
or other
we too grow
old and die like beasts
return to the
earth
vanish
towards the sky
Yet the world
unchanging
as we live on
keeps prodding us awake
with an old
old question
Only look!
Isn't this
new and amazing and lovely?
Every year
the deep perfume
of the lilac
growing on a rubbish dump
filling the
back-streets
An unsightly
prickly cactus
dangling from
the corner of a broken pot
blooming with
one bright flower
after long
restless nights
Springing
from a pond's black slime
the bright
form of a lotus flower
And surely
a child's
sweet smile
sprung from a
dark human womb
makes us
still more perplexed?
We oblige our
children
to put on
shoes for
they might
tread barefoot on the ground
and when
their hands get muddy
we wipe them
off saying that's dirty
For goodness
sake!
Not rooted in
the ground
their bodies
not smeared with mud
the
children's bursting hearts
their
bouncing bodies
as they
frolick and grow
all that
welling energy
Where does it
come from?
Still, the individual is not released from
responsibility for and participation in this unholy mess we call the modern
world; we are not allowed to opt out or wash our hands. Dictators often claim
to have come to purify society, but the problem of pain is a deeper one,
demanding also our acceptance of a share of pain:
Wisdom tooth
It's a
nuisance
it ought to
come out
it will just
go rotten
and damage
the molars
a wisdom
tooth should come out
I don't know
why they grow at all
you can't
chew with them
(a doctor's
words are always
medically
correct)
But will
taking it out
really be the
cure?
(Frightened
patients
are
invariably pig-headed)
I think I
will not get rid
of this
wretched tooth
though its
aching keeps me awake at night
it may be a
bothersome wisdom tooth
but who if
not I will chew
and be
capable of patiently enduring
and
treasuring
this part of
myself
that gives me
my share of pain?
So what, finally, is
Kim Kwang-kyu's solution? There isn't one. He does not talk about God, usually,
since that is not directly part of his own perspective, however much the
believer may find intimations of faith all through these poems and their vision
of humanity. No, he only invites each one to pick up again and again the
burdens of social participation that are part of our deepest identity as human
beings. We may not run away into solitude, for even Nature shows us that our
place is in the midst of the world:
Mountain
heart
Since I
cannot be born again
on days when
my heart grows grim
I leave my
quiet house
and go away
to the mountains
If I climb to
the top of Kunak Mountain
leaving the
world to its own devices
only
scattered rocks and dense foliage
between the
leaves of the dark-hooded oaks
a wild cat
slinking past
on a rotting
tree stump
a lizard
basking in the sun
jealous of
all these trees and animals
that have the
earth and the sky for their home
living at
ease with just their bare bodies
and of those
flowers and insects
that die and
are reborn year by year
I let loose a
heroic 'Yahoo'
but since
there is no Lord of the mountain
all I get
back is a wayfaring voice
I may climb
the lofty peaks
or go down
into the deep ravines
the mountain
has no central point
only
everywhere the chirping of mountain birds
mingles and
flows with the foaming torrents
while the
scent of the dark green forest
unfolds and
rises cool
Unable to
settle gently on a branch
unable to
sleep huddled in a rocky crevice
unable to rot
away with the dead leaves
leaving
behind my heart
that longs to
live in the mountains
I depart and
on the day I
return from Kunak Mountain
now a
nameless little hill
in house and
village
I am reborn
In his poems, Kim
Kwang-kyu does not offer us the intimate revelation of private emotions that
Romanticism has taught us to expect in poetry, perhaps because he takes poetry
more seriously than that. These poems arise from his experience of life as a
social being. That is why I have suggested that it is much more helpful to read
him in the light of the satirical poetry of Pope or Swift. There we find the
same variety of speaking voices, in a similar variety of relationships to the
aspects of society to be criticized. The speaker is sometimes wise, sometimes
puzzled, sometimes angry, sometimes incarnating the folly under attack; but
always in satire the poet and the reader are in the end united before the
question of their responsibility towards society.
In Kim Kwang-kyu's
poems, we are asked to think more deeply about the failures of the modern
world, and our own share of responsibility for those failures, in the hope
that, all together, we shall be able to advance towards a more humane future,
one in which these poems will perhaps no longer be needed, but until which such
poems are absolutely necessary for human survival.