Hoseung Jung

Talk given at the World Congress workshop weekend SYDNEY 7/8 Oct 2000

The first poetry book which I wrote was ‘From despair to joy’ in March, 1979, when I was twenty nine years old. 1979 was a very important year for modern Korean history. It was the year of the ‘October 26 Situation’, where President Park Jonghi after 19 years of military dictatorship was shot dead by the Head of the Central Intelligence Department, Kim Jaekyu. At the time the democratic basic rights of Korean citizens were non- existent. The media was heavily restricted and there was no freedom of assembly or association. Those who thirsted for, expressed and acted for a free democracy where thrown into prison. The people of Korea were not even able to breathe, were kept as quiet as a dead mouse not being able to whisper a word. Even when in a taxi we weren’t able to talk freely. If by any chance customers were to swear about or criticize the current government then it was possible that the taxi driver might take them not to their destination, but to the Central Intelligence Department instead. It was a period of terrorism upon the Korean people by their very own country. It was in such a time that I was a young poet. In an age where democracy was buried so completely I was lost as to how I, as a poet, should be living. At that time I was able to meet a poet named Kim Jiha.

After publishing a poem longing for democracy, he is a poet who spent all of the 1970’s in prison.

In the back alley of a new morning
I write your name, oh Democracy
Long has my memory forgotten you
So long ago did my footsteps stray away from you
Only one strand is left
A memory of the thirst within my burning chest
I write your name in secret, oh Democracy.

In a back street where the sun is yet to  rise
Footsteps, a crackle, a knock on the door
A cry of pain, the scream is so long
Upon your name, deeply engraved
Within a groan, a wail, a sigh, upon my chest
Upon the lonely dazzle of your name
Is the pain of a life lived
Are the memories of that blue freedom
Are the blood stained faces of our taken companions, now come back.
Shaking hand, shaking chest
With mouth clenched and shaking rage on a wooden plank
With clumsy hands I grasp chalk
I write
As I sob silently
I write your name in secret
With a burning thirst,
With a burning thirst,
Hurrah Democracy!

The above poem by the poet Kim Jiha is titled ‘With a burning thirst’. Through this poem I realised that poetry cannot turn away from the pain of reality, and it made me think about the tears and the agony of that time. Up to that moment my poetry stopped at the world of traditional Korean emotions (JeungHan). Koreans are a people with much emotion (Jeung) and many tears, and through such a national trait flowered traditional lyric poetry. But although upholding and flowering tradition was important, at that time I thought we also shouldn’t disregard the painful hurt of reality. As a poet I thought I must wipe away the tears of that generation. My poems ‘The Blind Couple Singers’, ‘Jesus of Seoul’, etc were based of the pain of that time.

From 1980, once again Korea went into military dictatorship under Jeon DuHwan and Noh Taewoo. Once again Koreans seeking desperately for democracy had to spend a time of despair and frustration. The ‘Kwangju Democracy Movement’ happened in May of 1980 and two thousand citizens of Kwangju were mercilessly killed by the guns of the military. Noh Taewoo’s government, which reigned after Jeon Duhwan was much the same. Young men set fire to themselves in protest as many died for a democratic Korea. At such a time it was necessary for poets to write People’s poems (Minjoong-shi) which sang of the suffering of the people of Korea.

You can discover the image of the people of Korea under oppression in the wretched death of a young crab run over by a military truck in the poem ‘Death of a young crab’ by Kim Kwangkyu.

Caught with his mother
One young crab
While the large crabs caught in the net
Were blowing froth, clawing in the air
Our young crab slips out of the box
Sideways, sideways he crawls along the asphalt
The days he played hide-and-seek in the mud
The freedom of the sea, where have they gone
As his eyes pop out and he looks around
A military truck runs him over
He explodes, dies on the road
The body of a young crab rotting in the dirt
A dazzling light which nobody can see

But at that time it wasn’t only People’s poetry(Minjoong-shi) which made up Korean poetry. There was Pure poetry (Soonsoo-shi) which sang of the innocent beauty of the world and its reality, and there was also poetry which sang of the life and tears of labourers working in a sub-standard labour environment. Next is part of ‘Grave of a hand’ by a young labourer Park Nohae.

The hand of Jeong
He who while laughing and sucking on an ice block,
Promised that if never else,
This Children’s day holding the hands of wife and    
                                                                                      child
He would go to the Great Children’s Park,
The hand of Jeong went flying.

Because he was wearing dirty work clothes
Not the President’s Granada,
Not the factory director’s Royal Saloon,
Not even the team manager’s Stellar was he allowed to ride,
After bleeding and bleeding was he taken to the hospital
In the baggage compartment of a Titan

His hand, still flapping between the machines
Is taken out of a glove soaked in oil,
All words are forgotten as I look at the hand of a labourer of 36 years of sorrow
I carry the hand, wrapped in a plastic bag
And go to Jeong’s house in the hill town of Bongcheoun-dong
I see the bright eyes of his wife and the sparkling eyes of his  son
I couldn’t possibly give them the hand
The hand of Jeong which I carry
Has grown cold and bloated
We wash the hand with soju
And bury it underneath the factory walls

Thankfully as Kim Youngsam’s democratic government went into power in 1991 the gates of democracy were opened for Korea. Following that the collapse of Eastern powers that had held onto the Communism ideology also had a large effect on Korea’s poets. Such a change in circumstances was an opportunity for reflection for the many poets who had written People’s poems during that period. People’s poetry had drifted away from the foundation of poetry, lacking in lyricism, being mainly prosaic and with many parts schematised. But now in Korea politically, the roots of democracy began to spread, and poetry began to venture back into lyricism with a new relationship between poem and poet being formed. I was interested in the tragedy entwined with human life. That was the beginning and the ending of my poetry. Human life is inevitably a tragic existence. Poetry also cannot exist apart from this tragedy. All I wish to do is through my poems understand, express and comfort this human despair. If through my poems you can feel a tragic joy or tragic ecstasy then I can ask for no more.

I think that poetry must be as warm and cosy as a mother’s bosom and it must comfort and solace people. I also believe that anyone and everyone is a poet. Inside of everyone’s heart are poems, all that I do is put those poems to paper for them. Korea is currently the last remaining divided nation. Although Korea is one nation, it has been split up into North and South for fifty five years. I believe that when Korea is unified we will be able to talk of true Korean contemporary poetry.

I wish to finish my talk by giving to you a poem which sings of the tragedy of unification.

You came in my dream
You left with a whisk at twenty three
At forty seven, a traveller
You return
If only I could meet you in my life
After many days, you who always worried, return
All you did was cried
With your head on my knee
Without a word
Like a child all you did was cried
Cried your heart out
How did you become so thin?
After so long, yet you live
You really came looking for me
You told me
Never again would you leave your mother’s side
Your hands wet with tears
That is what you told me

Kim Kyudong ‘A mothers letter from the North’

POEMS BY Hoseung Jung