The Art and Life of Korean Poet Ko Un: Cross-cult ural Communicat ion

Bro t her Ant ho ny o f T aiz é (An So njae)

Ko Un was bo rn in 1933, which means that to day he is nearer 80 than 70 . He is surely Ko rea's mo s t pro lif ic writer and he himselfcanno t say fo r sure ho w many bo o ks he has published in all. He guesses that it mus t be abo ut 140 , vo lumes o f many different kindso f po etry, epic, narrative, and lyric, as well as no vels , plays , essays , and trans latio ns fro m class ical Chinese.

In the las t two decades he has made jo urneys to many parts o f the wo rld, including Aus tralia, Vietnam, the Netherlands , Mexico ,Sweden, Venice, Is tanbul . . . He makes a deep impress io n wherever he go es , especially when he is reading his po ems in the husky,tense, dramatic manner he favo rs . It seems to make little o r no difference that mo s t o f his audience canno t unders tand a wo rd he issaying. He speaks little o r no English but time after time a deep co mmunicatio n is es tablished befo re anyo ne reads an Englishtrans latio n o r summary o f what he had been saying. After the drama o f his o wn perfo rmance, the trans latio ns usually so und ratherflat.

Ko Un's ability to co mmunicate beyo nd language is a gift that o ther Ko reanwriters can o nly envy him fo r. There are so me peo ple who do no t seem to needwo rds in o rder to co mmunicate, it is part o f their charisma. There are manybarriers to co mmunicatio n and many are the arts by which peo ple have tried too verco me them. In the case o f Ko Un, who canno t be every day giving readings ,there is an urgent need to make trans latio ns o f his wo rk available. In bringingKo Un's writings to a wo rld audience, I am acting to make cro ss -culturalco mmunicatio n po ss ible in o ne particular case.

It may be go o d to begin with a summary o f Ko Un’s life s to ry, s ince that in turnmay help to pinpo int so me o f the diff iculties we enco unter in trans lating hiswritings . He was bo rn in 1933 and grew up in Gunsan, a to wn o n the wes t co as to f No rth Jeo lla Pro vince. Echo es o f his childho o d experiences in the Ko rea o fthe 1930s and 1940s can be fo und in the earlier vo lumes o f the great 30-vo lume series kno wn as Maninbo, the final vo lumes o f which were publishedearly in 2010. The traditio nal life o f the farming villages , the intense awarenesso f extended family relatio nships , the po verty and the high level o f infantmo rtality all make this a wo rld far remo ved even fro m mo dern Ko rea, and veryunfamiliar to no n-Ko rean readers . Readers are expected to kno w that when KoUn was a child, Ko rea was under Japanese rule, and to kno w what that s ignifiesfo r Ko reans s till to day.

In 1950, war bro ke o ut and Ko Un was caught up in almo s t unimaginably painful s ituatio ns , which were in s tro ng co ntradictio n withthe warm human co mmunity he had gro wn up in, as Ko reans and o uts ide fo rces s laughtered each o ther merciless ly. As a child, Ko Unhad been so mething o f a pro digy, learning class ical Chinese at an early age with great facility, and enco untering the wo rld o f po etryas a s cho o lbo y thro ugh the chance dis co very o f a bo o k o f po ems written by a famo us leper-po et. His sens itivity was no t that o f ano rdinary 18-year-o ld and he experienced a deep cris is when co nfro nted with the reality o f human wickedness and cruelty. Hisexperiences included the murder o f members o f his family and the death o f his firs t lo ve as well as days spent carrying co rpses toburial. He po ured acid into his ears in an attempt to blo ck o ut the "no ise" o f this dreadful wo rld, an act that left him permanentlydeaf in o ne ear.

The traumas o f war might have des tro yed him co mpletely but he to o k refuge in a temple and the mo nk caring fo r him decided thathis o nly ho pe o f finding a way o ut o f his to rment wo uld be by beco ming a Buddhis t mo nk, leaving the wo rld at a time when the wo rldwas a very ugly place. His great intellectual skills meant that he rapidly became kno wn in Buddhis t circles and after the Ko rean Warended he was given respo ns ibilities . Mo re impo rtant to Ko Un were his experience o f life o n the ro ad as he acco mpanied his mas ter,the famo us mo nk Hyo bo ng, o n endless jo urneys aro und the ravaged co untry. Hyo bo ng had been a judge during the Japanese perio dand had quit the wo rld to beco me a mo nk after being fo rced to co ndemn so meo ne to death.

Ko Un's character is intense, unco mpro mis ing, he is eas ily driven to emo tio nal extremes and he so o n began to react agains t what hefelt was the excess ively fo rmal religio s ity o f many mo nks . The reader o f his wo rk has so metimes to fo llo w him thro ugh shado wscas t by intense despair. He felt o bliged to s to p living as a mo nk and in the early 1960s he became a teacher in Jeju Is land. Later inthe decade he mo ved to Seo ul. Fo r several years he lived as a bo hemian nihilis t while Ko rea was bro ught to ward its mo dernindus trial develo pment under the increas ingly fierce dictato rship o f Park Chung-hee. The climax came early in 1970 when Ko Un wentup into the hills behind Seo ul and drank po iso n. He nearly died but was fo und and bro ught do wn to ho spital.

In No vember 1970 a yo ung textile-wo rker, Jeo n Tae-il, killed himself during a demo ns tratio n in suppo rt o f wo rkers ' rights . Ko Unread abo ut his death in a newspaper he picked up by chance fro m the flo o r o f a bar where he had spent the night. The impact o f sucha selfless death changed his life radically. He says that fro m that mo ment o n he lo s t all inclinatio n to kill himself. The declaratio n o fthe Yushin refo rms in 1972, by which Park Chung-hee became pres ident fo r life and abo lished demo cratic ins titutio ns , sparkeds tro ng pro tes ts amo ng writers and intellectuals as well as amo ng the s tudents who have always acted as Ko rea's co nscience. In theyears o f demo ns tratio ns and pro tes ts that fo llo wed, Ko Un's vo ice rang o ut and he became the reco gnized spo kesman o f the'dis s ident' artis ts and writers o ppo sed to the Park regime. He was o ften arres ted and is to day hard o f hearing fro m beatings hereceived then.

When Chun Do o -hwan ro se to po wer in 1980, Ko Un was arres ted alo ng with Kim Dae-jung and many hundreds o f Ko rea's'dis s idents ' and he was sentenced to 20 years in priso n. It was there, as he faced the po ss ibility o f arbitrary executio n, that hefo rmed the pro ject o f writing po ems in co mmemo ratio n o r celebratio n o f every perso n he had ever enco untered. No o ne, herecko ned, sho uld ever be s imply fo rgo tten, s ince every life has immense value and is equally precio us as his to rical reco rd. This wasthe o rigin o f the po ems in the Maninbo (Ten Thousand Lives) series . Once the new regime felt sure o f its ho ld o n po wer, mo s t o f the

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priso ners were amnes tied. Ko Un was freed in Augus t 1982, in May 1983 he married Lee Sang-Wha, and in 1985 a daughter was bo rn.He went to live in Anseo ng, two ho urs fro m Seo ul, and began a new life as a ho useho lder, husband, and father, while co ntinuing toplay a leading ro le in the s truggle fo r demo cracy and fo r a so cially co mmitted literature.

There are peo ple who say that a po et's life has no thing to do with the po ems he o r she writes but that is hardly tenable. It is atheo ry that co ns iders po etry uniquely fro m a fo rmal s tandpo int and excludes every aspect o f perso nal, so cial, o r his to rical co ntext.Yet every wo rd Ko Un writes is ro o ted in and info rmed by the experience o f life I have jus t o utlined. It is inco nceivable that a man withsuch a life-s to ry sho uld no t write po ems deeply marked by it. He has a very intense sense o f his to ry, and o f his writing as a mirro ro f Ko rean his to ry.

On the o ther hand, his life s to ry canno t tell us anything abo ut the quality o f Ko Un's writing. He has always been such a co ntro vers ialfigure, fro m the mo ment his firs t bo o k o f po ems was published and he reno unced his life as a Buddhis t mo nk, that in Ko reaevaluatio n o f his wo rk canno t be separated fro m respo nses to his life and so cial o ptio ns . In particular, the Ko rean literaryes tablishment has fo r a lo ng time been divided abo ut the general ques tio n o f the so cial respo ns ibilities o f the writer. Many no tedwriters avo ided tro uble under dictato rship by refraining fro m co mmenting o n so cial is sues , writing po etry o f intense self-centeredness , private po nderings full o f abs truse symbo lism, uniquely co ncerned with cultivating aes thetic dimens io ns .

Ko Un and many o thers cho se no t to fo llo w them but ins tead defied censo rship to write and speak o ut. Fo r many years Ko Un co uldno t get a passpo rt. He was blacklis ted as a dangero us ly subvers ive dis s ident. Because the military regimes claimed to representtrue Ko rean demo cracy, any o ne who criticized them was by definitio n taking s ides with the Co mmunis t enemy in the No rth! Olderliterary critics are o ften s till unwilling to admit the value o r interes t o f Ko Un's writing. They have gro wn up with fixed ideas abo utwhat co ns titutes literary excellence and he do es no t fit in.

The to pic o f this paper can perhaps bes t be encapsulated in a ques tio n: What meaning can Ko Un's wo rk, and much mo dern Ko reanliterature, have fo r peo ple who have no t experienced Ko rean his to ry? Within any literary wo rk we find no t o nly the writer but also animplied audience. A Ko rean writer is no t, usually, co nscio us ly writing fo r a uniquely Ko rean readership, but writers inevitably assumea certain shared level o f experience in their readers . This is reflected, mo s t o bvio us ly, in the many things that are taken fo r granted,that are no t explained o r mentio ned explicitly.

The mo s t familiar example o f the diff iculty that arises is the ques tio n o f the divis io n o f Ko rea. A vas t quantity o f pro se and po etryhas been written in Ko rea o n the theme o f 'divis io n' and such writings are a reco gnized catego ry o f mo dern Ko rean literature. Thepain o f the vio lent separatio n o f families , the exclus io n fro m the land o f their birth o f the millio ns who fled so uthward befo re andduring the Ko rean war, the resulting sense o f alienatio n fro m full natio nal identity and the paralys is o f vital aspects o f Ko reanhis to ry, as well as the resulting lo p-s ided cultural changes related to indus trializatio n and wes ternizatio n in the so uth... all theseto pics and the related pain need no explanatio n in Ko rea, but they are a life-experience that is hardly co nceivable to so meo ne whohas never left the peace o f, say, rural Vermo nt o r o f Kyo to .

Ko Un's po etry is no t, usually, o vertly po litical. He is no t an explicitly pro tes ting po et, as o thers have been. Almo s t the o nly po emsthat directly refer to po litical events are tho se few he wro te after the massacres in Kwangju in 1980. But that o nly makes theques tio n mo re co mplex. Why, peo ple might ask, do es he write as he do es? Why are there so few directly "so cial" po ems and somany really rather diff icult o nes?

The answer wo uld pro bably have to be the o bvio us o ne : because that's the kind o f po et (o r writer) Ko Un is . Take it o r leave it. Andthat is the kind o f writing that I have been trying to trans late into English fo r the pas t twenty years o r so , having cho sen to take itrather than leave it. I f irs t wo rked o n trans latio ns o f Ko Un in tandem with the late Pro fesso r Kim Yo ung-Mo o o f Seo ul Natio nalUnivers ity, who died in 2001, so in what fo llo ws I will o ften refer to 'we' s ince this began as a shared pro ject.

Firs t, we published in 1993 a selectio n taken fro m all the po ems Ko Un had published befo re 1990, The Sound of my Waves. This wasthe firs t set o f trans latio ns o f his wo rk published in the Wes t. Then we published with Parallax Press (Berkeley) a vo lume o f 108Zen Po ems to which the publishers gave the title Beyond Self. This was republished as What? in 2008 .

In the meantime we trans lated Ko Un's Buddhis t no vel, Hwaom-gyeong. It was finallypublished as Little Pilgrim in 2005. In the fo llo wing years we prepared trans latio ns o f180 po ems taken fro m the firs t 10 vo lumes o f the Maninbo (Ten Thousand Lives) series .They to o were published in 2005. In 2006, we were able to publish ano ther vo lume o fvery sho rt po ems, Flowers of a Moment, where the po ems are less challenging than tho seo f What? The trans latio n o f a selectio n o f po ems fro m all the vo lumes Ko Un publishedprio r to 2002 led to the publicatio n o f Songs for Tomorrow in 2008 .

I have already said that Ko Un is no w a well-kno wn literary figure in every co ntinent,thanks to his vis its and the direct impact o f his presence. Yet he canno t expresshimself directly in English and mus t always depend o n an interpreter, except fo r theco mmunicatio n that passes directly, witho ut wo rds , by intuitio n and mutual sympathy.In any case, his po etry is written in Ko rean and mus t be trans lated. Ho w to trans late itis o ur great challenge. Once it has been trans lated, it has to be read and appreciated.That is where cro ss -cultural co mmunicatio n o ccurs .

I have implied that a majo r o bs tacle to reading Ko rean po etry lies in the very particularhis to rical co ntext in which it o riginates and to which it relates in o ften indirect ways . Yeto n reflectio n, I do no t believe that that is such a very great pro blem. Even no n-Ko reansseem able to unders tand the po em in which Ko Un tells o f his childho o d ambitio n to beempero r o f Japan.

Headmaster Abe

Headmas ter Abe Tsuto mu, fro m Japan:

a fearso me man, with his ro und glasses ,

fiery-ho t like ho ttes t red peppers .

When he came walking clip-clo p do wn the hallway

with the clacking so und o f his s lippers

cut o ut o f a pair o f o ld bo o ts ,

he cas t a deathly hush o ver every class .

In my seco nd year during ethics class

he asked us what we ho ped to beco me in the future.

Kids replied:

I want to be a general in the Imperial Army!

I want to beco me an admiral!

I want to beco me ano ther Yamamo to Iso ro ko !

I want to beco me a nurs ing o rderly!

I want to beco me a mechanic in a plane facto ry

and make planes

to defeat the American and British devils !

Then Headmas ter Abe asked me to reply.

I leaped to my feet:

I want to beco me the Empero r!

Tho se wo rds were no so o ner spo ken

than a thunderbo lt fell fro m the blue abo ve:

Yo u have fo rmally blasphemed the venerable name

o f his Imperial Majes ty. Yo u are expelled this ins tant!

On hearing that, I co llapsed into my seat.

But the fo rm-mas ter pleaded,

my father put o n clean clo thes and came and pleaded,

and by the skin o f my teeth, ins tead o f expuls io n,

I was punished by being sent to spend a few mo nths

so rting thro ugh a s tack o f ro tten barley

that s to o d in the scho o l gro unds ,

separating o ut the s till useable grains .

I was impriso ned every day in a s tench o f decay

and there, under s co rching sun and in beating rain,

I realized I was all alo ne in the wo rld.

So o n after tho se three mo nths o f punishment were o ver,

during ethics class Headmas ter Abe said:

We're winning, we're winning, we're winning!

Once the great Japanese army has wo n the war, in the future

yo u peninsula peo ple will go to Manchuria, go to China,

and take impo rtant po s itio ns in go vernment o ffices !

That's what he said.

Then a B-29 appeared,

and as the s ilver 4-engined plane passed o verhead

o ur Headmas ter cried o ut in a big vo ice:

They're devils ! That's the enemy! he cried fearless ly.

But his sho ulders dro o ped.

His sho ut died away into a so litary mutter.

Augus t 15 came. Liberatio n.

He left fo r Japan in tears .

Such a s to ry is no t so hard to unders tand and the po ems o f Ten Thousand Lives are pro bably the eas ies t fo r no n-Ko rean readers tounders tand. The main level o f cultural diff iculty in them are the references to aspects o f traditio nal Ko rean life unfamiliar in o thercultures , the s liding fretwo rk do o rs , the ho t flo o rs , the kimch'i and makko lli, the red pepper pas te and the names o f peo ple. Amatter fo r fo o tno tes and intuitio n, no t mo re. Ro bert Hass , the fo rmer American Po et Laureate, wro te o f the Ten Thousand Livespo ems in the Washington Post: "they are remarkably rich. Anecdo tal, demo tic, full o f the details o f peo ple's lives , they're no t likeanything else I've co me acro ss in Ko rean po etry." ( Washington Post, "The Po et's Vo ice" Sunday, January 4, 1998) They are no t likeanything else in Ko Un's po etry, either. The selected po ems trans lated in Songs for Tomorrow are arranged in chro no lo gical o rder, andso me o f the early po ems are o f a much mo re challenging kind:

Spring rain

O waves , the spring rain falls

and dies o n yo ur s leeping s ilence.

The darkness in yo ur waters so ars abo ve yo u

waves–

and by the spring rain o n yo ur s leeping waters

by spring rain even far away

far-o ff ro cks are changed to spring.

Abo ve these waters where we two lie s leeping

lo o ms a ro cky mass , all s ilence.

But s till the spring rain falls and dies .

With po ems like this , the mo s t impo rtant quality demanded o f the reader is a familiarity with mo dern po etry, a readiness to allo wimages to wo rk witho ut a given framewo rk by which to interpret them. Ko Un's early wo rk is clo ser to the general run o f mo dernKo rean po etry in that respect, with a s tro ng no te o f melancho ly and a fo ndness fo r puzz ling riddles . The po etic effect is o ftendependent o n the use o f unexpected wo rds and images , o r seemingly irratio nal relatio ns .

Read in chro no lo gical sequence, the evo lutio n o f certain themes and characteris tics o f Ko Un's wo rk so o n beco mes clear, and asRuth Welte o nce wro te: "The po litical po ems seem richer in meaning if the reader has a kno wledge o f Ko rea's diff icult mo dernhis to ry, but each po em also s tands alo ne as s tatement o n the mo vements o f po litical sys tems and the damages that they cancause. Ko Un's po ems gro w gradually mo re po litical but retain their deep s tillness . Even the mo s t po litically specific po ems have atimeless feel." (The Chicago Maroon, No vember 9 , 1999). One o f the mo s t famo us o f Ko Un's "po litical po ems" is "Arrows":

Bo dy and so ul, let's all go

trans fo rmed into arro ws !

Piercing the air

bo dy and so ul, let's go

with no turning back

trans fixed

burdened with the pain o f s triking ho me

never to return.

One las t breath! No w, let's be o ff

thro wing away like rags

everything we've had fo r decades

everything we've enjo yed fo r decades

everything we've piled up fo r decades ,

happiness

all, the who le thing.

Bo dy and so ul, let's all go

trans fo rmed into arro ws !

The air is sho uting! Piercing the air

bo dy and so ul, let's go !

In dark daylight, the target rushes to wards us .

Finally, as the target to pples in a sho wer o f blo o d

let's all, jus t o nce, as arro ws

bleed.

Never to return! Never to return!

Hail, arro ws , o ur natio n's arro ws !

Hail, o ur natio n's warrio rs ! Spirits !

Recent Ko rean his to ry has been blo o d-s tained and the memo ry o f tho se who have died fo r freedo m, demo cracy, and reunificatio n isregularly celebrated. Yet theirs ' is in so me ways an ambiguo us martyrdo m, it wo uld have been so much better if they had no t died, soyo ung. Ko Un's po em expresses the feelings o f many who to o k part in the demo ns tratio ns o f the 1970s and 1980s at which it waso ften read. It may no t co mmunicate so well with peo ple living in no n-hero ic s ituatio ns o f es tablished demo cracy, altho ugh theyo ught to realize that there are many s truggles demanding o f them a s imilar level o f co mmitment, sacrif ice, and ho pe. Often they dono t realize it and need Ko Un's vo ice to wake them up.

While he was a mo nk, Ko Un underwent training in what Ko reans call "Seo n" and the English language calls Zen, fo llo wing theJapanese. In fact he plunged into the mo s t demanding and po tentially dangero us fo rm o f Zen with such abando n that it caused him asevere psychic trauma. In any case, Ko Un is deeply influenced by the challenge to no rmal ratio nal dis co urse and lo gic that is fo undin the Zen use o f language. A certain kind o f Zen aes theticism is familiar to many to day in America and Euro pe, again mo s tlyidentified with things Japanese. Ko rean mo nas tic Zen is alto gether a to ugher thing, I wo uld say, and Ko Un's Zen po ems are surelyfar mo re challenging than anything else he wro te, bo th to trans late and to read. The Zen po ems in What? require the reader to let goo f virtually everything:

A Single Word

To o late.

The wo rld had already heard

my wo rd

befo re I spo ke it.

The wo rm had heard.

The wo rm dribbled a cry.

Summer

The s ightless sunflo wer fo llo ws the sun.

The s ightless mo o nflo wer blo sso ms in mo o nlight.

Fo o lishness .

That's all they kno w.

Drago nflies fly by day

beetles by night.

A Shooting Star

Wo w! Yo u reco gnized me.

An Autumn Night

Daddy

Daddy

A cricket s ings .

Ko Un seems to be a "po ets ' po et." Reading the Zen po ems, Gary Snyder respo nded with a po em o f his o wn:

No t jus t ho lding his Zen ins ights

And their miraculo us wo rkings tight to himself,

No t ho lding back to mys tify,

Playful and demo tic,

Zen s illy, real-life deep,

And a real-wo rld po et!

Ko Un o utfo xes the Old Mas ter and the Yo ung po ets bo th!

Tributes like that are the greates t reward a trans lato r can receive. It means that co mmunicatio n has happened, and that the readersfelt co nfident they were reading what the po et had written and wanted them to read. A lo t is written to day abo ut the act o ftrans latio n and the po s itio n o f the trans lato r, but certainly, as far as po etry trans latio n go es , the trans lato rs sho uld leave as littles ign o f their wo rk as po ss ible. The po et mus t speak, no t they.

Part o f the effectiveness o f Ko Un's Zen po ems in English trans latio n mus t be attributed to a third member to o ur team o ftrans lato rs . Effective trans latio ns o f Ko rean po etry into English are rare because there are few trans lato rs who are writers (o r evenreaders ) o f co ntempo rary English po etry. It co ns titutes a serio us limitatio n. We have been fo rtunate in finding an American po et andwriter, Gary Gach, who is willing to go thro ugh o ur vers io ns o f Ko Un's po ems, po int o ut places where the trans latio ns fail toco mmunicate, and make sugges tio ns fo r impro vement.

This nego tiatio n between "literal" trans latio n and "po etic" trans latio n is an extremely delicate o ne. Geo rge Steiner quo tes Dryden'sdefinitio n o f "to paraphrase": "to pro duce the text which the fo reign po et wo uld have written had he been co mpo s ing in o ne's o wnto ngue". (After Babel p.351) All theo ries o f trans latio n and co mmunicatio n derive fro m that.

Ko Un has es tablished his characteris tic way o f writing po etry, and the wo rks fro m co llectio ns published in the 1990s that we are atpresent trans lating o ften sho w him trans fo rming s imple mo ments o f everyday experience into po etry by a s tro ke o f imaginatio n, theirruptio n o f an unexpected co nnectio n. This can be seen as a deliberate s trategy o f 'defamiliarizatio n' which means that his readerscan never kno w what will co me next. His mo re recent po ems are lo nger than the Zen po ems but far richer than the quite s impleevo cative narratives o f the Ten Thousand Lives. An example, cho sen at rando m, might be "One Apple":

Fo r o ne mo nth, two mo nths , even three o r fo ur,

a man painted o ne apple.

And he kept o n painting

while the apple

ro tted,

dried up,

until yo u co uld no lo nger tell if it was an apple o r what.

In the end, tho se paintings were no lo nger

o f an apple at all.

No t paintings o f apples ,

in the end, tho se paintings were o f shriveled things ,

go o d-fo r-no thing things ,

that's all they were.

But the painter

gained s trength, letting him kno w the wo rld in which he lived.

He gained s trength, letting him realize there were details

he co uld never paint.

He to ssed his brush as ide.

Darkness arrived,

ruthless ly trampling his paintings .

He to o k up his brush again,

to paint the darkness .

The apple was no mo re,

but s tarting fro m there

emerged paintings o f all that is no t apple.

If that seems to o lo ng o r challenging, readers have the o ptio n o f the sho rt po ems in Flowers of a Moment:

The sun is setting

A wish:

to beco me a wo lf beneath a fat full mo o n

*

I have spent the who le day talking abo ut o ther peo ple again

and the trees are watching me

as I go ho me

*

Exhaus ted

the mo ther has fallen as leep

so her baby is lis tening all alo ne

to the so und o f the night train

*

One rainy spring day

I lo o ked o ut o nce o r twice

wo ndering if so meo ne wo uld be co ming by

To day, mo re than 30 vo lumes o f trans latio ns o f Ko Un's wo rk into at leas t fifteen languages have been published, with mo re toco me. It might be useful to end by giving a brief acco unt o f so me critical respo nses to Ko Un's wo rk. When What? was beingpublished, Allen Ginsberg wro te a mo ving preface which is o ne o f the earlies t in-depth respo nses to Ko Un written by a no n-Ko rean,wes tern po et:

Familiar with so me o f his earlier po ems in trans latio n, especially so me o f the later tricks ter-like naturalis tic lifesketches o f Ten Tho usand Lives -- tender po rtraits , humane, parado xical, “o rdinary” s to ries with hilario us twis ts &endings , a little parallel to the “Characters ” o f W. C. Williams and Charles Reznico ff, I was s to pped sho rt by thepresent vo lume. What? ’s the right title. 108 tho ught-s to pping Ko an-like mental firecrakers . (. . .) Ko Un backtracksfro m earlier “Crazy Wisdo m” narratives and here presents what I take to be pure Zen mini-po ems. I can’t acco unt fo rthem, o nly half unders tand their implicatio ns and am attracted by the nubbin o f po etry they represent. Hard nuts tocrack -- yet many seem immediately nutty & empty at the same time. (. . .) Ko Un is a magnificent po et, co mbinatio no f Buddhis t co gno scenti, pass io nate po litical libertarian, and naturalis t his to rian. This little bo o k o f Seo n po emsgives a glimpse o f the severe humo ro us dis cipline beneath the pro lif ic variety o f his fo rms & subjects . Theseexcellent trans latio ns are mo dels useful to inspire American Co ntemplative po ets .

Fro m 1995 Ko Un began to travel abro ad regularly and in 1997 we find him giving readings with Gary Snyder and with the AmericanPo et Laureate Ro bert Hass in Berkeley. The fo llo wing year, in 1998 , Ro bert Hass devo ted a sho rt article in the Washington Postnewspaper to Ko Un. After a summary o f Ko Un’s life in the co ntext o f mo dern Ko rean his to ry he turns at o nce to Maninbo, the wo rkthat had s truck him mo s t deeply:

Gary Snyder ( left ) and Allen Ginsbergin t he Cascade Mo unt ains, 19 65

Only a handful o f the po ems have appeared in English trans latio n, but they are remarkably rich. Anecdo tal, demo tic,full o f the details o f peo ple's lives , they're no t like anything else I've co meacro ss in Ko rean po etry. It's to be ho ped that a fuller trans latio n o f themwill appear.

When we published o ur trans latio ns fro m the firs t 10 vo lumes o f Maninbo in 2005,Ro bert Hass wro te the fo rewo rd, and then published an article in the New YorkReview of Books, a splendid tribute. He recalls firs t seeing and hearing Ko Un during avis it to Seo ul in 1988 and, o f co urse, that is o ne o f the mo s t impo rtant elementsin Ko Un’s wo rldwide reputatio n--the impact o f hearing him perfo rm his po etry atreadings : no o ther Ko rean po et has such po werful charisma. As Michael McClureo nce wro te:

In the wo rld o f po etry his reading is unique. There is no o ne who reads likethis . Ko Un delivers his language with the intens ity o f o ne who wasfo rbidden to learn his native Ko rean language as a child, but learned itanyway…... Ko Un's po etry has the o ld-fashio nedness o f a muddy rut o n aco untry ro ad after rain, and yet it is also as s tate-o f-the-art as a DNAmicro -chip. Beneath his art I feel the mys terio us traditio nal animal and birdspirits , as well as age-o ld ceremo nies o f a natio n clo se to its his to ry.

Hass describes the develo pment o f mo dern Ko rean po etry thro ugh the 20 th centurybefo re quo ting 2 very early po ems by Ko Un fro m The Sound of My Waves. Of thefirs t, “Sleep” he writes :

This is an inward po em, quietly beautiful. As English readers , we're deprivedo f any sense o f what it reads like o r so unds like in Ko rean. It seems likemid-century American free verse, put to the use o f plainness o r clarity. Thesensatio n o f the s leeper, having o pened his eyes and clo sed them with afeeling that he was s till ho lding the mo o nlight, is exquis ite. The turn in thepo em—the shado w cas t by the hunger fo r an entire purity—seems Rilkean.

Of the seco nd, “Des tructio n o f Life” he writes :

This has , to my ear, the to ughmindedness o f Ko rean Buddhism and the kind o f raggedness and anger I asso ciatewith American po etry in the 1950s and 1960s , the yo ung Allen Ginsberg o r Lero i Jo nes . I've read that Ko rean po etryis no t so aes thetically minded as Japanese po etry partly because it has s tayed clo ser to o ral traditio ns rather thantraditio ns o f learning, which may be what gives this po em its quality. It's mo re demo tic than "Sleep," mo respo ntaneo us and to ugher, less satis fied to res t in beauty.

Then he turns to Maninbo:

Maninbo seems to flo w fro m a fus io n o f these traditio ns . Fo r anyo ne who has spent even a little time in Ko rea, thewo rld that springs to life in these po ems is ins tantly reco gnizable, and fo r anyo ne who has tried to imagine the waryears and the desperate po verty that came after, these po ems will seem to attend to a who le peo ple's experienceand to speak fro m it. No t surpris ingly, hunger is at the center o f the early vo lumes . Their po int o f view is the po into f view o f the village, their way o f speaking abo ut the shapes o f lives the s tuff o f village go ss ip. They are even, atmo ments , the s treet seen with a child's eyes so that characters co me o n s tage bearing a ten-year-o ld's sense o f aneighbo rho o d's Ho meric epithets : the bo y with two co wlicks , the fat, mean lady in the co rner ho use. The po emshave that intimacy. Mo s t o f them are as lean as the village do gs they describe; in hard times peo ple's charactersseem to s tand o ut like their bo nes and the s to ries in the po ems have therefo re a bo ny and syno ptic clarity. It's hardto think o f analo gs fo r this wo rk. The sens ibility, alert, ins tinctively demo cratic, co mic, unsentimental, is a little likeWilliam Carlo s Williams; it is a little like Edgar Lee Mas ters 's Spo o n River Antho lo gy o r the mo re po litical andencyclo pedic ambitio ns o f Charles Rezniko ff's Tes timo ny. The po int o f view and the o verheard quality remind me o fthe No rwegian po et Paal-Helge Haugen's Sto ne Fences , a delicio us bo o k that calls up the who le so cial wo rld o f theco ld war and the 1950s fro m the po int o f view o f a child in a farming village. Fo r the dark places the po ems arewilling to go , they can seem in individual po ems a little like the narratives o f Ro bert Fro s t, but neither Mas ters 'swo rk no r Fro s t's has Ko Un's co mbinatio n o f pungent village go ss ip and epic reach. The characters , village wives ,s to rekeepers , snake catchers , beggars , farm wo rkers , call up a who le wo rld.

Mo s t s triking is the way in which Hass links Ko Un’s wo rk to po etry by a variety o f po ets fro m vario us co untries , seeking to s ituatehim by s imilarities and differences in a universal po etic co ntext. Yet his co mments also sho w a s tro ng awareness o f the impo rtanceo f co ntext in unders tanding Ko Un’s wo rk, fo r he keeps referring to the co ncrete events o f Ko rean his to ry and to its culture. Ko Unhas written that no po em can be “universal” because every po em arises within a particular po et in a particular place at a particularmo ment and in a particular language. Hass unders tands this , and he co ncludes;

perhaps it is eno ugh to no tice the fertility o f Ko Un's po etic reso urces . One wo uld think that the po ems wo uld beginto seem fo rmulaic, that the ways o f calling up a life wo uld begin to be repetitive, and they never are. In that way it isa bo o k o f wo nders in its mix o f the lives o f o rdinary peo ple, peo ple fro m s to ries and legends , and his to rical f igures .They all take their place ins ide this extrao rdinarily rich reach o f a s ingle co nscio usness . Ko Un is a remarkable po etand o ne o f the hero es o f human freedo m in this half-century.

American readers have o ften been drawn to po etry in trans latio n because o f the dramatic po litical circumstances that pro duced it

rather than by the qualities o f the wo rk itself. But no o ne who beginsto read Ko Un's wo rk will do ubt that what matters here is the wo rkitself.

I have quo ted Hass at length because he has written with deepunders tanding o f so many aspects o f Ko Un’s wo rk. One co ns tantdisappo intment is the lack o f extended bo o k-reviews o f o urtrans latio ns . I do no t kno w ho w it is in o ther language-areas , but theEnglish-speaking literary press is no to rio us ly reluctant to reviewtrans latio ns . We all kno w that very few trans latio ns are published inEnglish, co mpared with o ther languages , perhaps because so muchis written in English. “Fo reign” writers are, with rare exceptio ns , littlekno wn to the American o r British publics and as a result publishersand bo o ksellers pro claim, ‘Trans latio ns do no t sell.’

One o ther info rmative respo nse to Maninbo co mes in a lo ng articleo n mo dern Ko rean literature by Jo hn Feffer published in The Nation(Augus t 31, 2006):

This co mmemo ratio n o f Ko rean his to ry and co untrys ide,freed fro m s trictures o f fo rm and dictio n impo sed fro m theo uts ide, fo llo ws in the traditio n o f minjung, o r "peo ple's "culture. Ko Un has "go ne to the peo ple" fo r his inspiratio n,much like the naro dniks , the Russ ian radicals o f thenineteenth century, and the So uth Ko rean s tudent mo vementactivis ts o f the 1980s who emulated them. But Ko Un hasno t summo ned up so me ethereal co ncept o f the Peo ple.Maninbo, his mas terpiece, is the Peo ple made flesh. Thanksto Ko Un, they co ntinue to walk amo ng us .

One very impo rtant ques tio n arises regarding what I wo uld almo s tcall the “Theo ry o f Maninbo”. Ho w can it bes t be read? In an articleabo ut Ko Un and Maninbo published in the mo s t recent is sue o f WorldLiterature Today, I wro te:

Each individual po em in Maninbo reaches o ut to all the o ther po ems, jus t as each individual perso n o nly finds ameaningful life in meetings with o ther peo ple, and Maninbo o nly finds its full meaning when read in that way. Apro cess o f antho lo giz ing, selecting jus t a few o f the “bes t” po ems (as we have been fo rced to do ) des tro ys thatto tality. The o riginal title o f Ko Un’s Buddhis t no vel that we trans lated as Little Pilgrim is Hwaŏmgyŏng (AvatamsakaSutra) and the metho d o f seeing all the po ems (in Maninbo) as being co ntained in each o ne is an applicatio n o f thatBuddhis t sutra’s fundamental teaching o f the interco nnectedness o f all things , embo died in what is kno wn as Indra’sNet. Indra's net symbo lizes a universe where infinitely repeated mutual relatio ns exis t between all members o f theuniverse. This idea is co mmunicated in the image o f the net o f the Vedic go d Indra. Indra's net is suspended with amultifaceted jewel at each o f its infinite number o f intersectio ns , and in each jewel all the o ther jewels are perfectlyreflected. One is all and all is o ne.

One way o f interpreting that is to co nclude that every po em in every vo lume sho uld be trans lated so that no n-Ko rean readers mayhave access to the full Maninbo experience. Ano ther, equally valid, is to say that it is eno ugh to have read jus t o ne o f the 3,960po ems with real unders tanding; and that is no t to deny the uniqueness o f each o ne o f them.

Brother Anthony of Taezé is Emeritus Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Sogang University. A prolific translator of Koreanpoetry, his books include Ko Un’s The So und o f My Waves , What? 108 Zen Po ems , Ten Tho usand Lives , Flo wers o f a Mo nument, andSo ngs fo r To mo rro w. He wrote this article for The Asia-Pacific Journal.

Recommended citation: Brother Anthony of Taizé, "The Art and Life of Korean Poet Ko Un: Cross-cultural Communication," The Asia-PacificJournal, 40-2-10, October 4, 2010.

References

Ko Un's ho me page

Bro ther Antho ny's ho me page

English trans latio ns o f Ko Un's wo rk

1. The Sound of My Waves (Selected po ems 1960 ~ 1990) (Ithaca: Co rnell Univers ity Eas t As ia Series , 1992), tr. Bro ther Antho ny o fTaizé & Kim Yo ung-Mo o .

2. Beyond Self, (Berkeley: Parallax, USA, 1997), tr. Bro ther Antho ny o f Taizé & Kim Yo ung-Mo o .

3. Travelers’ Maps (Bo s to n: Tamal Vis ta Publicatio n, 2004), tr. David McCann. (A few selected po ems)

4. Little Pilgrim, (Berkeley: Parallax, 2005), tr. Bro ther Antho ny o f Taizé and Kim Yo ung-Mo o . (The no vel Hwaeomgyeong)

5. Ten Thousand Lives (LA: Green Integer Press , 2005), tr. Bro ther Antho ny o f Taizé, Kim Yo ung-Mo o & Gary Gach. (Selected po emsfro m Maninbo vo lumes 1-10)

6 . The Three Way Tavern (LA: UC Press , 2006), tr. Clare Yo u & Richard Silberg (Selected po ems)

7. Flowers of a Moment (New Yo rk: BOA, 2006), tr. Bro ther Antho ny o f Taizé, Kim Yo ung-Mo o & Gary Gach (Trans latio n o f the po ems

in the co llectio n Sunganui kkot)

8 . Abiding Places: Korea South and North (Vermo nt: Tupelo , 2006), tr. Sunny Jung & Hillel Schwartz (Selected po ems fro m theco llectio n Namgwa buk)

9 . What? (Berkeley: Parallax, 2008) tr. Bro ther Antho ny at Taizé & Kim Yo ung-Mo o . (A new editio n o f Beyond Self)

10 Songs for Tomorrow: Poems 1960-2002, (LA: Green Integer, 2008), tr. Bro ther Antho ny o f Taizé, Kim Yo ung-Mo o & Gary Gach(Selected po ems)

11. Himalaya Poems, (LA: Green Integer, 2010) tr. Bro ther Antho ny o f Taizé & Lee Sang-Wha (Selected po ems fro m the co llectio nHimalaya)

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