Park Mok-wol (6 January 1916 – 24 March 1978) was an influential Korean poet and academic.
1. Life
Park Mok-wol was born Park Yeong-jong on January 6, 1916, in Gyeongju. In 1933, at the age of 18, he published a children's poem entitled "Tongttakttak tongjjakjjak" (통딱딱 통짝짝 Boom Bang Bang Boom Clap Clap) in Eorini, a magazine issued by Kaebyok Publishing. The same year, his children's poem "Jebimaji" (제비맞이 Watching for Swallows) was accepted by Singajeong magazine, and he became known as a children's poet. He lived in Tokyo from April 1937 until late 1939, during which period he devoted his time to writing. In 1940, his poems "Gaeul eoseureum" (가을 어스름 By Autumn) and "Yeollyun" (연륜 Maturity) were published in the journal Munjang, marking his official literary debut. Afterwards, due to increasing wartime censorship by the Japanese colonial government, he continued writing privately but did not publish any further poetry until after the liberation of Korea.
Park taught at various schools including Keisung Middle School and Ewha Girls' High School beginning in 1946, before joining the faculty of Hongik University as an assistant professor in 1953.
In 1961 he began teaching at Hanyang University (at which a statue was erected in his honor). He was later named the dean of the university's College of Humanities. In 1966 he was elected to the National Academy of Arts of the Republic of Korea. He was a board member of the Society of Korean Poets from its founding in 1957, and was chosen as the society's chairman in 1968. He died on March 24, 1978, at his home in Wonhyoro-dong, Yongsan District, Seoul.
Park's awards include the Freedom Literature Awards, May Literature and Art Awards, the Seoul City Culture Awards (1969), and the Moran Medal of the Order of Civil Merit (1972). In 2007, he was listed by the Korean Poets' Association among the ten most important modern Korean poets.
2. Writing
Park Mok-wol began his career as a member of Cheongrok-pa (the Blue Deer school), a group of three poets who also included Cho Jihoon and Park Dujin, all named after the 1946 anthology in which they appeared. Although they differed in style, their work largely had its basis in natural description and human aspiration. The body of Park Mok-wol's work at this time 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.
After his experiences during the Korean War, Park's work shifted in style. Now 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 Sandohwa (산도화 Wild Peach Blossoms) and Nan, gita (난, 기타 Orchids and Other Poems) encapsulate his artistic aim to depict the 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, Gyeongsang-doui garangnip (경상도의 가랑잎 Fallen Leaves in Gyeongsang-do) 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.
