Sudent wins literary prize with poem on Sewol ferry disaster
.jpg?w=728)
Lauren Park
By Chung Ah-young
Lauren Park, a Korean-born student, was recently honored by the literary awards of Australia for a poem inspired by the Sewol ferry disaster.
Her poem titled “The Lost Children of Korea” grabbed the top honor in the junior secondary poetry category at the 22nd Mosman Youth Awards in Literature.
Attending Pymble Ladies’ College (PLC) in northern Sydney, the ninth-grader competed with 353 contestants.
She said she was shocked when she first heard news reports in April that the ferry sank off Korea’s southwestern coast, leaving hundreds of passengers dead.
Park said she decided to write the poem about the disaster because many Australians were unaware of the shipwreck, despite the fact that more than 300 people were killed, most of them high school students.
Her poem vividly portrays the students’ emotions, from joy when they departed on a school trip to Jeju Island to fear and despair when they were trapped in the sinking ferry.
“A scaled down Titanic
Bleached whiteness
with its name neatly printed?
Sewol.
It means ‘the passing of time’
They told us
Time passed,”
she wrote in the poem.
“They lost contact, they told them
As politicians stood on shore with our families, taking sober photos, frowning, hugging.
We had a sense of lost contact: no slurping mother’s kimchi soup from squat spoons;
no sibling squabblings, no poking, tickling;
no piano recitals at New Year parties,”
she wrote.
In her acceptance speech at the awards ceremony at the Mosman Library on Aug. 27, Park said she still cannot believe such a disaster could happen and it stills haunts her.
Some 90 people attended the event including short-listed entrants and their families, teachers, sponsors, judges and Mayor of Mosman, Councillor Peter Abelson.
The judges praised the high standards of this year’s entries and congratulated all the winners on their writings.
After the ferry disaster in April, Park told her schoolmates about it and organized an event that attracted hopeful messages and condolences for the Sewol victims, particularly for students of Danwon High School in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province.
Park compiled the messages from students in 14 schools in Sydney and delivered them to the Korean Consulate General in Sydney on June 13.
The Sewol ferry sinking killed 294 of the 476 passengers on board, with 10 others listed as missing.