Poetry Foundation 誌에 실린 高銀 詩人 관련 기사

Ko Un

2017 Poetry Foundation       

Korean poet, writer, and activist Ko Un was born in Gunsan-si, Jeollabuk-do. He was drawn to poetry after discovering the early work of Han Ha-Un, a nomadic Korean poet with leprosy. After witnessing the devastation of the Korean War, Ko entered a monastery and became a Buddhist monk. He left the Buddhist community in 1962. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Ko was detained, tortured, and imprisoned repeatedly for his opposition to the military regime. After being granted a passport in the 1990s, Ko visited North Korea, India, Tibet, and the United States. In 2000, he shared his poetry at the Korean unification summit in Pyongyang and spoke at the United Nations Millennium Peace Summit.
 
Ko’s poems range from epigrammatic couplets to longer epics and discursive poems, and he engages natural and social themes using the rhythms of informal speech. In a 2012 interview for the Guardian, he discussed how surviving the Korean War affects his work, stating, “I'm inhabited by a lament for the dead. I have this calling to bring back to life all those who have died. Freud says the dead have to be left dead. Derrida said the dead are and should be always with us, not abandoned. I'm on Derrida's side. I bear the dead within me still, and they write through me.” Presenting the Griffin Poetry Award, poet Robert Hass described Ko as “one of the heroes of human freedom in this half century, a religious poet who got tangled by accident in the terrible accidents of modern history. But he is somebody who has been equal to the task, a feat rare among human beings.”
 
Ko has published more than 100 books, including translations of his poetry into more than a dozen languages. English translations of his poetry include First Person Sorrowful (2013, translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé and Lee Sang-Wha), This Side of Time (2012, translated by Clare You and Richard Silberg), What?: 108 Zen Poems (2008, translated by Allen Ginsberg), and The Three Way Tavern: Selected Poems (2006, translated by Clare You and Richard Silberg). His 30-volume Maninbo, or Ten Thousand Lives (2005, translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé and Lee Sang-Wha), based on a project he began while in prison, was born of an effort to write a poem for every person he’s met.
 
Ko has twice won the South Korean Literature Prize and received the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry’s Lifetime Recognition Award. He was elected chairman of the Association of Writers for National Literature and was chosen president of the Compilation Committee of the Grand Inter-Korean Dictionary. He has taught at Seoul National University, Kyonggi University, Harvard University, and the University of California at Berkeley. Ko lives in South Korea. 

                                                           

Poems by Ko Un

• Around Unmun Temple at Ch'Eongdo                                                        

• Asking the Way                                                        

• Ear

• Keumgang-Gul / Diamond Cave                                                        

• Taklamakan Desert
  

Poetry News

Nobel Prize for Literature Odds in Murakami's Favor, Poets Ko Un & Adonis in Running

By Harriet Staff

         

The Guardian has got the odds on the Nobel Prize for Literature, which should be announced in about 29 days; it looks like Haruki Murakami is the favorite, with 3-1 odds. Syrian poet Adonis is also in the running again (14-1), as is South Korean poet Ko Un (10-1). More:

Murakami has been considered a frontrunner for the past 10 years. His emergence as favourite this time round comes as his latest novel – the title of which translates as Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of PilgrimageO – is being translated into English ahead of publication in 2014.

The Nobel prize for literature is awarded each October, in accordance with the wishes written in Alfred Nobel's will, to "the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction". The precise date is kept vague until the last minute; on Wednesday, the Nobel website said only that it was a minimum of 29 days off. The 2013 prize is worth 8m Swedish kronor (£780,000).

Though the Nobel administration prides itself on being inscrutable, it has experimented with a little light leaking. In May, it tantalisingly tweeted: "5 candidates have been selected for 2013 #NobelPrize in #Literature according to Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy," provoking a flurry of speculation as to whether this could be America's year, with Philip Roth and Don DeLillo floated as possible recipients.

Ladbrokes is running with Murakami, but the firm has got it wrong before. In 2011, a run of bets prompted it to slash odds on Bob Dylan from 100-1 to 10-1 24 hours preceding the announcement of the winner. That year, Adonis was a 6-1 favourite, followed by Murakami (8-1) and the eventual winner, Tranströmer (10-1).

Last year, the prize went to Mo Yan, who became the first Chinese writer to win it, at odds of 9-1. Since 1901, a total of 109 individuals have won the Noble prize for literature, 12 of them women.