Korea, like many East Asian countries, was greatly damaged during the progression of modern history. With a throng of foreign warships swarming to its shore, the country could no longer stay a recluse. After Korea was colonized by neighboring Japan, the people of Korea who had always had a deep respect for literature, tried to escape hardship by embracing Western civilization. The most urgent priorities for Koreans were learning the modern sciences and establishing a stable economic foundation. But it was also important for them to understand the literary forms of the modern Western world and begin practicing a new form of literary art in order to imbue their language with a unique power, as well as awaken to their fate and boost national pride in the midst of despair. The Korean people grasped the essence of Western literature in a relatively short period of time, and immediately set to creating outstanding works of modern literature. Such a feat was made possible due to a literary tradition of over a thousand years spent mastering Eastern classics and literature, but also due to the urgent call of the day. The fetters of colonization, however, could not be removed for more than three decades; liberation led to national division with the South and the North, divided by an inflow of foreign ideologies and a bloody, fratricidal war.

The 1960s of Korea began with the April 19 Revolution, through which students and citizens rose up to topple the dictatorship. The revolution is significant in the context of Korea’s spiritual history, in that it awakened the people to the fact that they were key players in the making of history. A politically heightened spirit led directly to poetic passion. Everyday citizens penned a poem, and more. Poetry was all the rage, and poetic imagination surpassed political imagination. The spiritual force leading to this poetic fervor came from various sources. Poets, who had long been making an effort to give a Western literary form to Korean native mythology and sentiments, now attempted to fuse the modern achievements in the humanities with the mythical imagination of the Korean people. Poets believed that the universal analogy connecting humans and nature had been nullified as a result of the inflow of unfamiliar cultures into Korea and the passive modernization of the colonial era. These poets sought a foundation for democratic growth in the meditation of nature as well as classic ethical teachings of the East. The poets who had honed their sensibilities through a study of Western or modern art, wrote poetry with poetry itself as the end goal, and at the same time, tried to make the sophisticated language of poetry the allegory of a pure spirit, free from worldly desires. By their side were poets who glimpsed the hope for an absolutely pure language in the purity of the self-confession found in Christianity, a religion still unfamiliar to the Korean people at the time. However, poets who made a keen observation of the political and social realities believed that through constant and careful reflection on everyday life, the possibility of a newly unfolding history, as well as the possibility of an advanced language, could be founded simultaneously. The political changes incurred by the civic revolution are significant in that they led the poets of Korea to devise poetic methods appropriate for the era in which they lived, by finding their own language and discovering themes large and small in their own lives. As implied by the title of the poem, “Shells Shall Depart,” by a major poet of the era, outdated ideas and foreign ideologies were nothing but empty shells, to be filled with deep reflection and affection for life and humans.

The changes in society, however, did not include the realization of the hopes embodied by poetry, and once again, poetry grew in its power to inquire and express amid the strife against a coercive military regime. Such a phenomenon was not limited to poetry, which had always engaged in political struggle, actively advocating social participation. Regardless of which side they were on, poets who had lived under the ideals of a neo-Confucian tradition that asserted conformity of learning and action, tried to clearly define the relationship between the outstanding language of their creation and true spiritual liberty; thus they endlessly posed existential questions and asked how effective poetry could be in establishing a healthy prospect of life in a reality where all kinds of social ideas and aesthetic theories intermingled.

The wounds of national division, already internalized, left a deep scar on the language of poetry. As a result of rapid industrialization, people from rural areas, who came swarming to the city, attempted to express their feelings of anxiety through the unique language of poetry. Even when the reality is unfortunate, if that reality is embodied in an appropriate way, the spirit and the mind can be uplifted. Political unrest, fierce competition, and heated intellectual fervor often made the language of poetry like that of prose, seemingly unfamiliar, but the poetic territory expanded and the power of language was strengthened. People learned that poetry, not verse, exists in life, even a pathetic life, and that any word can lead to poetic inspiration.

In 1980, with the bloodshed in Gwangju among citizens and soldiers, another poetic boom occurred in Korean society. People tried to keep what they did, saw, and heard in their memory. What they had to remember, however, was not just the scene of a single incident. Their memory went down to the root of this unfortunate history, even further below. They tried to remember how the world, existing deep within their memory as a faint trace, and forbidden because it was so beautiful and sacred, was buried just below the bloody tragedy of the day. Memories were recalled, and those memories were turned into rough slogans at times, and sophisticated songs at others. Nothing is without meaning if it is something experienced and conceived by humans. Moreover, there is no tragedy that cannot fill a human heart with poetic sentiments. When a veteran Korean poet dedicates his poems, at times lyrical, at times satirical, and at times instructive, to the people he has encountered in life and history and myths, then he always has this conviction in mind.

The themes and methods of Korean poetry underwent many changes at the turn of the century and into the new millennium. The focus was removed from literature as a political tool, and placed on the fundamental political nature of literature, and poets who had sung of rural sentiments and meditation on nature were now showing a deeper concern for the ecological environment. Above all, the emergence of a great number of women poets and their lively engagement should be noted. Being in charge of everyday life, being mothers who bear and raise children, they have come to grasp the secrets of everyday life, unknown to men. When men flaunt weapons of theories and ideologies, women can write an entire poem with the words, “It’s not always that way.” In this country, still tainted by the tendency of preferring a son to a daughter, women poets have changed the climate of Korean poetry. It’s not surprising that the young poets who have emerged since the year 2000 have the same roots as that of the women poets. From the conventional perspective of men, middle-aged and older, young poets, like women poets, belong to a new order. They declare, against the globalization and capitalization of the world, and against the conspiracy to rationalize and mechanize everything in human history, that the world cannot turn those who use a language so alive that it is nearly confusing, into “dead poets.”

Korea is a country of poetry. Collections of poetry often become bestsellers in this country. The safety doors of the Seoul subway stations display poetry, as do parks and hiking trails, so much so that it is almost annoying. As can be seen in “Poetry,” a film by Director Lee Chang-dong, local governments in Korea provide their people with poetry writing classes, and many people take advantage of them. Also, as can be seen in “Ha Ha Ha,” a film by Director Hong Sang-soo, poets, looking like angels or devils, can be found in any town in Korea, delving into people’s thoughts. The reason why Koreans love poetry is because they all believe that their roots have not been extracted in this era of industrialization, and they keep sacred in their hearts something that cannot become lost.