Epilogue

The poetry written since 1953 in the two halves of the divided peninsula cannot be covered here.
As a final example, here is one well-known poem by a still- living poet, often taught in high schools, "Flower" by Kim Ch'un- su:

Until I spoke his name
he was nothing more
than a set of gestures.

Once I had spoken his name
he came to me and
became a flower.

Won't someone speak my name,
one matching my colour and scent,
as I spoke his name?
I want to come to him
and become his flower.

We all of us
want to become something.
We want to become unforgettable significance
I for you and you for me.

Some of my sophomore students chose it as the most impressive poem in Korean they had ever read, for the following reasons: "This is the only poem that I could feel the meaning of naturally without any explanation of my teacher; that was sadness, despair, and desire." "When I fell into powerlessness, this poem helped me find the direction of my life... People are all lonely beings. They have empty space unfilled. They are finding their invisible thing to fill this space with. As for me, such a thing can be the feeling of being together with another person. That is communication not with speaking but with emotion. So I think the fulfillment of this space together is life, unforgettable meaning." "Through this, we can find out our identity. Sometimes I conceive how I can love like this and I'll try in order to be unforgettable meaning." "The way of making relationship in this poem became my guidepost in my life." "In this poem, I think of the reason for being. We can be recognized when there is someone around us." "When I was a high school student, it seemed that there was nobody who could understand me. After reading this poem, my longing for someone grew bigger than before."

There are some very large bookstores in the centre of Seoul, they are open at weekends and until 9pm every day. During vacations and at weekends, they are crowded with middle- and high-school children who stand reading for hours. A lot of them are reading poetry books, of which many are clearly designed for them. They read very seriously. They are clearly looking for poems that will tell them about the meaning of life, innocence, authenticity, a sense of beauty and true values. There are also great piles of newly published volumes of poetry for adult readers, displayed in a position where English bookstores seem to put royal biographies or illustrated cookery books. Poetry still matters in Korea. At prime time on Christmas Eve the main TV channel broadcast a 2-hour dramatisation of the life of a poet who died in poverty two years ago. Few countries can have such a lively poetic tradition.

The purpose of this paper isto suggest that Korean poetry has arisen and taken shape in social and national contexts which have no equivalent at all in any English-speaking country. Perhaps this can serve to remind us of dimensions and of absences in English poetry that we too often forget. The expectations of Korean readers/students coming to the poetry of other cultures will be formed by those with which they read their own poetry. Their way of reading is contained within a framework of references that I have tried to outline above. Poetry in the Korean sense is not quite the same as the poetry being written elsewhere in other tongues. Because there is no country in a situation or with a history similar to Korea's. We need to remember that.