Park Mok-wol

Pak Mok-Wol (1916–1978) was a Korean poet.^[1]

Life

Park was born on January 6, 1916 in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, in present-day South Korea. In fact, his birthname is Park Young Jong. He held a professorship at Hongik University and Hanyang University (at which a statue has been erected in his honor^[2]) beginning in 1961. Park was elected to the Korean Academy of Arts (Yesurwon) in 1965 and was also chosen as chairman of the Korean Poets Association in 1968.^[3]

Work

Park Mok-wol’s body of work established a new trend in Korean poetry, one that attempted to express childlike innocence and wonder at life through folk songs and dialectal poetic language. However, after his experience in the harrowing Korean War, Park’s work shifted in style; he strove to incorporate the pain, death, and even monotony of daily existence into his poetry without maintaining a standard of sentimental and lyrical quality. His poetry collections, Wild Peach Blossoms (Sandohwa) and Orchids and other poems (Nan. Gita) encapsulate his artistic mission?to depict the pendulous and shifting human response to both the joys and sorrows of life. His later poems, however, represent a return to the use of vivid colloquial language as the medium through which to express the color and vitality of local culture. His collection of poems from this later stylistic phase, Fallen Leaves in Gyeongsang-do(Gyeongsang-doui garangnip), provides the artistic forum through which he is able to further explore his earlier questions of the relationship between light and dark, happiness and despair, and life and death. Park’s poetry, especially his later work, reveals a fervent love for life that does not wane despite his diligent acknowledgment of the ever-present threat of the end. He is celebrated for the cautious optimism of his work and his ability to subtly internalize conflicts of empiric reality in his deceptively localized and dialectal poetry.^[4]

Awards

Park's awards include the Freedom Literature Awards, May Literature and Art Awards, the Seoul City Culture Awards, and the Order of the Peony.

Cheongnokpa

He belonged to Cheongrok-pa which was group of 3 poets - Jo Ji Hoon, Park Du-Jin and himself. Cheongnokpa consists of mainly two words. Cheongnok(청록) refers to bluish-green color and pa means group or party.

In 1946, first collected poems were issued. Although the expression or preference is different from three of them, their poems largely had their basis in natural description and the hope of humans. Considering these features, Seo Jeong-ju named them Nature party of poets.^[5]

Works in Translation

• Selected Poems of Pak Mog-wol, English (박목월 시선집)
• 过客, Chinese ( 박목월 시선)
• Le Passant, French (나그네 )

See also

• List of Korea-related topics
• List of Koreans
• Korean literature
• Korean poetry
• List of Korean language poets

External links

• The Dong-ri Mog-wol Literary Museum (Korean only)
• PDF file of an English-language article on Gyeongju by Park Mok-Wol, published in Korea Journal in 1965
• includes a short laudatory overview and biography

References

1. ↑ "박목월 " biographical datasheet available at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#
2. ↑ "Mokwol's monument inscribed with a poem", Weekly Hanyang: http://www.hanyang.ac.kr/week/2003/200305/e2_sub1.html
3. ↑ "박목월 " biographical datasheet available at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#
4. ↑ "박목월 " biographical datasheet available at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#
5. ↑ The two paragraphs of cheongnokpa were translated from the page ; http://infomap.cafe24.com/infomap/7513