Poetry
향현
Not translated into English
Pak Tu-jin · 1939
Synopsis
The poem contemplates a mountain covered with dwarf pines, tall trees, oaks, vines and rocks. On its slopes beasts of prey and their prey live together, foxes and wolves, deer and hares, and other small creatures. The mountain stays silent, for a long time, and the voice waits for a flame to leap from the summits and set everything ablaze. Between hope and doubt, it calls for the day when the strong and the weak would live in peace.
Context
The poem appeared in June 1939 in the journal Munjang, together with another text, on the recommendation of Jeong Ji-yong; two further submissions, in September 1939 and in January 1940, completed the triple recommendation that then amounted to entry into literature, according to the Kyeonggi Ilbo. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture places these early poems on the side of the discovery of nature and of an ecstatic aspiration to an ideal. Korean study sheets read the colonized people in the animals and a purification in the flame, and one critic sees in it the prophecy of liberation.
Who it is for
A short poem in free verse, carried by enumeration and exclamation; no translation is attested.
Prizes and reception
One of the very first published poems of its author, praised by the poet who recommended it to the magazine.
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