Kim Chunsu (1922 – 2004) was a South Korean poet.
1. Life
Kim Chunsu was born in 1922 in Tongyeong. He studied creative writing at Nihon University from 1940 to 1943, but was expelled and jailed for speaking against the Japanese Empire. After his release seven months later, he returned to Korea and taught middle school in Tongyeong and Masan.
In 1946 his first published poem, "Aega" (애가 Elegy), appeared in Nalgae (날개 Wings), an illustrated volume of poetry to commemorate the first anniversary of Korea's liberation. His first collection of poetry, Gureumgwa jangmi (구름과 장미 The Cloud and the Rose), was self-published in Tongyeong in 1948, with a foreword by friend and fellow poet Yu Chi-hwan. He went on to publish numerous collections including Neup (늪 Swamp), Gi (기 Flag), Budapeseuteueseoui sonyeoui jugeum (부다페스트에서의 소녀의 죽음 Death of a Girl in Budapest), Deullim, doseutoyepeuseuki (들림, 도스토예프스키 Possessed by Dostoyevsky), and the anthologies Syagarui maeure naerineun nun (샤갈의 마을에 내리는 눈 The Snow Falling on Chagall’s Village) and Kimchunsu siseonjip (김춘수 시선집 The Selected Poems of Kim Chunsu). He also published several studies of poetry as well as informal essays and an autobiographical novel, Kkotgwa yeou (꽃과 여우 The Flower and the Fox).
Kim was a professor at Masan University and Kyungpook National University. In 1981, he was elected to the National Assembly. Kim won numerous awards including the second Korean Poets’ Association Prize, the seventh Asia Freedom Literature Prize, the Art Academy Prize, and the Culture Medal. In 2007, he was listed by the Korean Poets' Association among the ten most important modern Korean poets.
2. Writing
As a poet, Kim Chunsu was a purist and experimentalist. Kim's career as a poet spanned almost four decades, which can be roughly divided into four periods. The first, which includes his most well-known works such as "Kkot" (꽃 A Flower) and "Kkocheul wihan seosi" (꽃을 위한 서시 An Introductory Poem for a Flower), focuses on the fundamental role of language and linguistics in attaining consciousness of any particular object's existence. He was most influenced by Rilke in the early phase of his career, but in later years he advocated what he called 'the poetry of no meaning.'
The second period, which encompassed the late 1950s to the late 1960s, was a transition period between his early phase and later years. It was filled with works that used description-oriented narrative images, imagery and aesthetic metaphor purely for imagery's sake. Taryeongjo gita (타령조 기타 The Ballad Tune and Other Poems), his seventh volume of poetry, contained poems combining the rhythms of Korean folk ballads with a technique of word-play as an attempt to critique civilization.
From the early 1970s, Kim repeatedly declared that he did not believe in ideas, let alone ideologies, nor in history. This 'poetry of no meaning,' which characterized his later years, began in the second part of Cheoyongdanjang (처용단장 Fragments on Cheoyong), written on and off over a quarter of a century from the late 60s and published in its entirety in October, 1991.
Between Taryeongjo gita and Cheoyongdanjang, Kim Chunsu wrote three more volumes of poetry, of which Ratinjeommyo gita (라틴점묘 기타 Latin Sketches and Other Poems) evoked his European trips. One of his last volumes, Seoseo jamjaneun sup (서서 잠자는 숲 The Woods that Sleep Standing), is a collection of poems in prose which he described as 'a chemical combination of realism and anti-realism.'
