Sijo Begins to Draw Attention in US

David McCann teaches Korean literature to students at Korea Institute of Harvard University. McCann will publish a book of sijo poems titled “Urban Temple” this fall to inspire other writers.

/ Courtesy of Korea Institute Harvard University

By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter

Chinese quatrains and Japanese haiku have gained notice in the United States among other Asian literature, while ``sijo,'' ancient Korean poetry, has been relatively unknown outside Korea.

However, sijo is now gradually drawing attention on the international literature scene with the efforts of a handful of foreign enthusiasts.

Sijo is a Korean traditional poem of 43 to 45 syllables whose third line contains a twist on the theme developed in the first two.

To promote the excellence of sijo, none other than American professor David McCann, who has taught it to students at Harvard University, has spearheaded the popularization of sijo.

He hosted a sijo festival at the university this spring along with other fellow professors and poets from Korea and the U.S. to feature both Korean and English variants.

``This was the first such gathering of poets presenting sijo both in Korean and in English. I believe it was the first-ever such festival dedicated to sijo here in the U.S.'' McCann said in an email interview with The Korea Times.

There was also a sijo contest connected with a Boston Globe article and his work on the form. The contest drew 170 postings with runners-up including an 11-year-old who read the article, and wrote a sijo that his grandmother sent in, McCann said.

The poet and professor of Korean literature at the Korea Institute of Harvard University said that sijo is important as a representative of Korean literary culture, being distinctive, unique and remarkably flexible.

It compresses the four segments of the Chinese quatrain ― opening, development, turn, and conclusion, which the form needed four lines to accomplish ― into just three lines.

Compared to the 17-syllable haiku, sijo has more room to develop a theme, narrative or image before twisting and resolving it in the final line.

So, why do haiku work and sijo not, he wondered. Just because not many people know about it doesn't mean it doesn't have appeal. It has three lines, and with the quite challenging twist in the third line, can take a poem and a poet in directions neither would have predicted.

``I have had a great deal of pleasure and enjoyment writing nothing but sijo for the past two years or so. But I've also been struck by how strong an appeal the form has for other writers,'' he said.

Students had haiku days in middle school in which their teachers taught them about writing haiku and something about Japanese culture.

The professor said that it seems to be a universal part of the primary school curriculum in the U.S., and a strong starting point for grown-up readers later to discover an interest in Japanese literary works, perhaps novels translated into English which they might see at a book store.

``There is nothing like it yet for sijo, however, and I thought it might be wonderful to get a sijo day started in schools, so that students might grow up and feel a sense of familiarity with Korean literary works they might find published in English,'' the professor said.

American interest in Japanese culture and literature started more than a century ago, he said. But Korean literature did not find a similar reception until the last few years with the so-called Korean Wave, or hallyu.

The Korean Cultural Service in New York City has for the past three years published a compilation of stories from the New York Times about hallyu and the broader reception of Korean culture in the U.S.

McCann said that the changes are striking as Korea and its culture, from music to politics, have become so much a part of everyday happenings in North American news stories. It's curious that Korean music, food, politics, clothing styles, television and movies have all found enthusiastic followers outside the country.

``Korean literature, Korean writers, the Korean publishing scene do not yet have the same level of recognition. It may be crazy of me to think so, but I am hoping that if sijo begins to draw admirers or practitioners in the U.S. then Korean literature will also become more widely understood and appreciated, and Korean literary works will enjoy broader and deeper recognition,'' he said.

Sijo as Art

The range of the traditional sijo texts varies from wisdom, wild or subtle humor, courage, resistance to authority and outrage at injustices. Many times, it is just a straightforward appreciation of a beautiful day in a wonderful natural setting.

Also, sijo poems have significance as a very special type of performance art. For one thing, they are and were sung. The style of singing is a special one, and not as popular on the current music scene as it could be. But there are other ways to sing sijo, as blues, or folk.

``I've heard a terrific version of Kim So-wol's 'Azaleas' by the singer Maya, an electrifying refiguring of the 'folksong-style' poem. I would bet that she could do an amazing rendition of a sijo either historical or by a contemporary author,'' he said.

Sijo is a different type of performance genre, which might connect in some ways with today's Korean Wave phenomenon. The famous sijo by Hwang Jin-i about the ``Jade Green Stream,'' for example, is Chinese-based language in the first half of each line, and pure, straightforward colloquial Korean in the second half.

The sijo form makes it possible for all of these elements to come into place in a dramatic performance that is implicit in the poem's lines.

Sijo Going Overseas

Sijo seems to work quite well as an English language form as he has seen a number of other poets in his own circles of acquaintances find to the form to their liking.

McCann happens to think sijo would work well in a number of other languages. There is a German poet who has written a number of sijo in that language, and many years ago, he also discovered that the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova had translated sijo poems into Russian and published them as a book in the 1930s.

``Although I do not know the Russian language, I could nevertheless recognize the poems in sijo form when I looked through the book. We should try to do a systematic search for sijo translations or original compositions in as many different languages as we can,'' he said.

Way to Go

Promoting sijo needs a very broad effort, McCann said. ``Good translations we have, in the work of Richard Rutt, Kevin O'Rourke, and even perhaps some that I have tried. We could use more, but we need translations of contemporary sijo poets,'' he said.

For English-language readers, Rutt's collection of translations, ``The Bamboo Grove,'' provides a sound introduction. And O'Rourke has added his own striking translations as well in ``The Book of Korean Sijo.''

``Azalea journal, published at Harvard's Korea Institute through the support of the Min Literature Fund and the Korean Literature Translation Institute, has in its most recent issue published some of my translations of sijo poems by Hong Seong-nan, Cho Oh-yeon, and the late President Kim Dae Jung, from his ``Letters from Prison.''

``I have sent some of my own sijo poems to various literary journals, hoping to get them interested,'' he said.

McCann will publish ``Urban Temple'' from Bo Leaf Book to inspire other writers. He has given classes and workshops at the Bancroft School, in Worcester, where they have a very strong creative writing program and excellent students in the creative writing club.

``I very much hope to continue my efforts to spread the word and the practice as widely as I can,'' he added.

``I hope to do more. I think, though, that it would be most helpful to have a sijo festival in Korea, and to bring American and other poets to Korea to see and hear the poems read and performed, to take part in workshops, write and do readings of their own compositions. And perhaps we will hear new musical settings for sijo such as Bertrand Laurence's Blues-style settings. Would Maya be interested, I wonder?'' he said.

chungay@koreatimes.co.kr