Shin Cheolgyu (1980~) is a Korean poet. He has written poems about various tragic events both in and out of the country in an understated tone, including the sinking of the Sewol ferry, the death of Korean farmer and activist Baek Nam-gi, and the 9/11 terrorist attack in the Unites States. Since his first poetry collection came out in 2018, he has been one of the most prominent poets in Korea. He was awarded the Shin Dong-yup Prize for Literature, and one of his poems was selected as the winner of the 2018 Today’s Poetry Award.

1. Life

Early Years
Shin was born in Geochang-gun, Gyeongsangnam-do Province. He grew up in his father’s apple orchard, helping him harvest fruits and plowing the ground with a cultivator. He went to a small elementary school with only seven students attending for each grade. The town was so small that he could not find books to read; what he could only afford back then was textbooks and some cartoons. He first got to read poems and novels when he entered the high school in a larger town. He entered an engineering college thanks to his love for mathematics and physics only to quit in one month and went to another college where he could study Korean literature. [1] He started to write poems while he served in military. After finishing his service, he joined a literary club at his college and started to write poems in earnest. [2]

Literary Careers
He made a debut in 2011 with his poem titled “Yubing (유빙 Drift Ice)” published in the Chosun Ilbo. He was not satisfied with his works for the first few years. It was good to be asked to write, but he had only a limited number of pieces ready, ending up amending the existing pieces here and there and releasing it, rather than writing a new one. This had led to a feeling of inertia. He experienced two losses in 2013; one was a death of his beloved cat and another was that of his fellow poet from the graduate school who died of a disease. Going through tough times, he began to want to write poems more closely linked to the reality. Most of his poems written in this period are included in his first poetry collection titled Jigumankeum seulpeotdago handa (지구만큼 슬펐다고 한다 As Sad as the Earth) (2018). [3]

Shin was relatively well-known to the public before he released his first poetry collection, thanks to good publicity from the press. In 2016, a famous anchor Sohn Suk-hee of JTBC Newsroom quoted Nunmurui jungnyeong (눈물의 중력 Gravity of Tears) in his anchor briefing [4] and Shin’s another work Simjangboda nopi (심장보다 높이 Higher than the Heart) was selected as the winner of the 2018 Today’s Poetry Award by 100 fellow poets, literary critiques, and editors.[5]

In 2018, Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea) held a Translation: Poetry reading session [6] where the audiences could hear the poems of Shin translated into Japanese. Translator Moon Kwang-ja, Park Eunjoung and Asada Emi participated in translating and reading Shin’s poems. A total of ten pieces were read in the event, including nine poems from Jigumankeum seulpeotdago handa and his new work titled “Bultumyeonghan yeongwon (불투명한 영원 Opaque Eternity)”. About the reading session, Shin commented, “Although I never choose a word based on polysemy, I came to understand how one word can be interpreted in so many different and specific ways through this event.”

2. Writing

In his poetry world, Shin has adhered to the themes of relationships, wounds, sorrow and solidarity. He has confronted tragic reality both in and outside Korea and wrote poems out of it [8]. His poem “Geomeun bang (검은 방 A Black Room)” is about the heartbreaking sinking of Sewol ferry while “Yeongiro gadeukan bang (연기로 가득한 방 A Room Full of Smoke)” calls public attention to the undeserved death of farmer Baek Nam-gi, and “No seopeuraijijeu (No Surprises)” is associated with a sit-in protest atop a power transmission tower over the massive layoff at Ssangyong Motor in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi-do Province. [9] Although those are issues that garnered huge interests from the public, he has also paid attention to the ones that were not widely reported in the media. His poetry collection Jigumankeum seulpeotdago handa describes tears of nameless souls too, including a small kid from a slum who is uninvited to a birthday party of his friend who lives in a wealthy neighborhood nearby (“Seulpeumui jajeon (슬픔의 자전 Rotating Sorrow)”) as well as a giraffe that escaped a zoo and was shot by a tranquillizer gun (“Mabi (마비 Paralize)”). For Shin, humans and animals are the same in that they are creatures bound to suffering. “Mabi” is about animals but makes us think about their “human quality” with the giraffe’s tear. “Yeongiro gadeukan bang” tells us about humans yet calls our attention to their “animal nature” with the subject matter of dead fish victimized by violence [10]. Those scenes carry the author’s sharp criticism towards the society. [11] About his poems, Shin said, “We cannot know for sure the depth or extent of the emotions of others, especially the sorrow associated with the underlying pain and loss. Still, I wanted to portray it in my own language, the sadness that I cannot measure nor fathom.” [12]

One of the characteristics of his poems is that he employs assertive sentences, with an ending “-ida” in Korean. This style gives his poems a dry, report-like impression. Rather than giving a sense of dryness, however, his sentence makes us grasp his restrained yet condensed emotions. [13] Shin has also set himself apart with his pleasantly earthy local dialects of Gyeongsang-do Province in his poems. Many other young Korean poets who made their debut after the 2000s often grew up in Seoul or its adjacent areas, so it has been rare to see poems written in local dialects among those young writers. For example, his poem “Ul eomma sijipganda (울 엄마 시집간다 Mom is Getting Married)” is about a marsh snail mom and Shin described her empty shell swept away by the water after giving everything she had to her children in a pitiful and empathetic tone of Gyeongsang-do dialect. [14]

Reference

Major Works

 1) Poetry Collections
《지구만큼 슬펐다고 한다》, 문학동네, 2017. / Jigumankeum seulpeotdago handa (As Sad as the Earth), Munhakdongne, 2017

References

1) Kim Ji-yeong, “Poet Shin Cheolgyu Looks into the Sorrow of the World with his Farmer’s Perspective”, Dong-A Ilbo, July 19, 2018
http://www.donga.com/news/article/all/20180719/91120153/1
2) “2018 Today’s Poetry Award 2018 by Writers – Interview with Korean Poet Shin Cheolgyu”, Cultura, March 01, 2018
http://www.cultura.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=144
3) Lim Na-ri, “Shin Cheolgyu: A Poem Begins When Your Back Touches the Wall”, Channel YES Author’s Interview http://ch.yes24.com/Article/View/36915
4) Shin Dong-wool, “JTBC Newsroom Anchor Sohn Suk-hee Quoted A Poem Nunmurui jungnyeong by Shin Cheolgyu in his Anchor’s Briefing>, Kookje Shinmun, December 12, 2016
http://www.kookje.co.kr/news2011/asp/newsbody.asp?code=00&key=20161212.99002210221
5) “Simjangboda nopi Written by Shin Cheolgyu Won 2018 Today’s Poetry Award”, Maeil Business Newspaper, April 05, 2018
https://www.mk.co.kr/news/culture/view/2018/04/217588/
6) Translation : Poetry is a consecutive bilingual poetry reading session featuring a poet and their translators jointly hosted by LTI Korea and the poetry bookstore Wit N Cynical. The poet chooses the works to be translated ahead of time, and the translator works in cooperation with the poet for the translation process.
7) [Culture Day] Translation : Poetry – Hearing Shin Cheolgyu’s Poetry in Japanese, News & Media, Events, LTI Korea Website 
https://www.ltikorea.or.kr/overseapub/275.do
8) Kim Sang-hyeok, “Choice – Poetry Collection”, Munhakdongne 24 (3), September 201.
9) Um Jeong-gwon, “Poet Shin Cheolgyu of Jigumankeum seulpeotdago handa: I wrote a poem on the edge of the cliff when I cannot find refuge in tears,” Readers News, September 11, 2017
http://www.readersnews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=75054
10) Shin Hyeong-cheol, “A Cry for Six Years” on Jigumankeum seulpeotdago handa, by Shin Cheolgyu, Munhakdongne, 2017.
11) Kim Ji-yeong, “Poet Shin Cheolgyu Looks into the Sorrow of the World with his Farmer’s Perspective”, Dong-A Ilbo, July 19, 2018
http://www.donga.com/news/article/all/20180719/91120153/1
12) “2018 Today’s Poetry Award 2018 by Writers – Interview with Korean Poet Shin Cheolgyu”, Cultura, March 01, 2018
http://www.cultura.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=144
13) ) Shin Hyeong-cheol, “A Cry for Six Years” on Jigumankeum seulpeotdago handa, by Shin Cheolgyu, Munhakdongne, 2017.
14) Kim Ji-yeong, “Poet Shin Cheolgyu Looks into the Sorrow of the World with his Farmer’s Perspective”, Dong-A Ilbo, July 19, 2018
http://www.donga.com/news/article/all/20180719/91120153/1
15) Jeong Jin-yeong, “Poet Shin Cheolgyu and Two Others Won Shin Dong-yup Prize for Literature, Munwha Ilbo, August 01, 2019
http://www.munhwa.com/news/view.html?no=2019080101072921320001