Pak Tu-jin

Pak Tu-jin (or Park Tu-jin) (1916 – September 16, 1998) was a Korean poet.^[1]

Life

Pak was born in Anseong 40 miles from Seoul in modern-day South Korea. His family was too poor to give him any formal education. His first publications were two poems that came out in 1939. Pak died on September 16, 1998).^[2]

After Korean Liberation, Pak, alongside Kim Dongri, Cho Yeonhyeon, and Seo Jeongju, created the Korean Young Writers' Association. Park worked as a professor at Ewha Womans, Yonsei, Korea, and Woosuk Universities, as well as Chugye University for the Arts.^[3]

Work

During Japanese colonial rule over Korea between 1910 and 1945, the Japanese forbade any publications in the Korean language. Later in his life, he became a renowned writer, contributing to Korea's modern literary voice.

The Literature Translation Institute of Korea summarizes Pak's (who sometimes wrote under the pen name ‘Hyesan,’) contribution to Korean Literature:

Park Dujin is one of the most prolific and renowned poets in all of modern Korean literature. As illustrated in his first collection of poetry, The Blue Deer Anthology (Cheongnokjip, 1946), which he co-authored with Park Mokwol and Cho Jihun, Park’s poetry most often takes nature as its subject. Through verses that sing of green meadows, twittering birds, frolicking deer, and setting suns, the poet is often understood by critics to be presenting his own creative commentary on social and political issues. According to one theorist, “A Fragrant Hill” (HyangHyeon), one of Park’s first published poems, uses just such imagery to prophesize Korea’s liberation from Japan. The ‘peaceful co-existence of wild animals and plants’ in “HyangHyeon”, for example, can be interpreted as standing for the ‘latent power of the nation,’ with the flame that rises from the ridge symbolizing the ‘creative passion of the people.’ ^[4]

It is because of this particular significance held by the natural symbols in Park’s poetry that the lyrical quality of his poems is set apart from the romantic, pastoral lyricism of many other representative Korean poets. The role of the natural world in Park Dujin’s poetry is that of a catalyst for understanding the world of man, rather than an end in itself. To 'characterize (his) poetic stance as involving a state of exchange between or joining of the self and nature', according to literary critic Cho Yeonhyeon, 'is incorrect from the outset. Park operates from a standpoint that presupposes the impossibility of even distinguishing between the two'.^[5]

With the further publication of his collections The Sun (Hae, 1949) and Afternoon Prayer (Odo, 1953), Park also began to draw a Christian ideal into his poetry, and, in so doing, to display a particular poetic direction. Inspired by a powerful consciousness of his people’s situation in the aftermath of the Korean War, Park went on to publish works that demonstrated both rage and criticism in reference to various policies and social realities that he himself saw to be nothing short of absurd. Even through the sixties, with the collections The Spider and the Constellation (Geomi wa Seongjwa, 1962) and A Human Jungle (Ingan millim, 1963), Park continued to seek a creative resolution to the trials of his time, representing history not as a given, but as a process shaped by all its participants. The onomatopoeia, figurative expressions, and the poetic statements in prose form used so boldly are perhaps the most notable technical devices in Park’s poems from this period. With the onset of the 1970s, when he published such collections as Chronicles of Water and Stone (Suseok yeoljeon, 1973) and Poongmuhan, the nature of his poetry evolved once again; founded now on private self-realization, these poems are often said to reveal Park’s attainment of the absolute pinnacle of self discovery at which ‘infinite time and space are traveled freely.’ As such, Park, known as an artist who elevated poetry to the level of ethics and religion, is today evaluated more as a poet of thematic consciousness than of technical sophistication.^[6]

Works in translation

• River of Life, River of Hope (박두진 시선)

Works in Korean

• Hyanghyon
• Son of Calvary
• Sun, Home Village
• The White Porcelain Jar Excavated at Potanli Village
• Return of the Night Sea
• Insu Peak

Awards

• Asian Liberty Literature Prize, 1956
• Seoul City Cultural Award, 1962
• Samil Culture Award, 1970
• Korea Council Award, 1976

See also

• Korean poetry
• Korean literature
• List of Korean language poets

References

External links

• About Pak Tu-jin and some poems at Sogang University
• More about Pak Tu-jin and some poems at Sogang University
• Many poems in English and Korean