Poet dedicates book to mother

Choi Yearn-hong / Korea Times file

“White Cotton-Tail Deer” by Choi Yearn-hong

By Kim Haeng-ja

“White Cotton-Tail Deer” is the fifth book of poetry by Choi Yearn-hong, the founding president of the Korean-American Poets and Writers Group.

The book was a delight to all Korean-American poets and writers in the fall of 2015. It was well received as a “maple leaf” in the Korean autumn mountain. At the same time, his fourth book of poetry in English, “Adieu, Winter,” was published in the United States. Korean poets and writers celebrated his two books in Korea and in the U.S.

Choi has been a distinguished poet since the early 1970s when he was one of three editors of Horizon, the first poetry magazine in the U.S., published in Los Angeles. The other two were Hwang Kap-ju and Mah Jong-ki. Choi was the editor of the first Korean-American book of poetry in the 1970s. He then participated in the “Sea of Light, Kwangju,” an anthology with five other poets protesting the so-called Kwangju massacre in 1980, and “May Burning in Light,” another anthology published in Tokyo. He was known as a poet who cared for the home country’s political struggles for democracy against authoritarian rule in the 1980s. In 1990, he was founding president of the Korean Poets and Writers Group in the Washington area and published its annual anthology, “Washington Munhak,” in 1991. He set a good example as a Korean poet to young and old Koreans who aspired to be poets and writers.

This new book of poetry, “White Cotton-Tail Deer,” is composed of three groups _ the first group for family affairs, the second for societal affairs and the third for travel to the homeland, mostly, and to foreign lands.

White Cotton-Tail Deer

In the snowing trail,

I met a deer, a white-tailed deer.

In front of me, she stood still, and

just stared at me for a while.

My mother was looking at me

without a word

in the last days of her life;

Her eyes were in the deer’s eyes.

Something close to tears or crystal

remained as some sad stories untold

between the deer and me.

Snow, cotton-like snow,

falling, falling from the heaven

was covering my mother’s grave site

as the winter blanket.

The world is quiet, silent and soft.

Choi returned to Korea in 1996 to care for his aging and sick mother. He gave up his U.S. citizenship for a teaching position at the University of Seoul. He still shows tears whenever he reads poems and talks about his mother. My friends and I can see his “hyo,” or filial piety, toward his mother.

Another touching and impressive poem in the first group is “From the Idaho Potato Field.” I quote the poem in full here. You may understand why I have quoted this whole poem.

From the Idaho Potato Field

Idaho’s green field had small white flowers and pink flowers in July.

The harvest of potatoes is expected in September or October.

Sprinklers on the green field were making a rainbow against the sunset.

Grandmother who harvested potatoes in July came from her country house

To my city house with a bushel of her first harvested potatoes on her head

Along the 10-mile new unpaved highway.

All the potatoes that did not have any scars from the hoe were for me,

Her grandson who loved to eat potatoes.

Looking over the green field with small white flowers,

I saw my grandma who was walking from Oesachon to Chongup

With a bushel of potatoes on her head.

She was a white butterfly, or the white flower.

Tears streamed from my eyes to my cheeks.

“Grandson, are you still showing tears?”

She wiped my tears with her handkerchief.

“You are now 65.”

His poems in the third group are not necessarily travel poems, even though he traveled to Jeju Island to investigate maritime boundaries between Korea and China on Ieodo and Korea and Japan on Dokdo. More than 10 poems from Jeju Island are beautifully touching for all Korean people. I cannot quote more poems here due to limited space.

It is my belief that this book of poetry is going to be evaluated as the best among all his literary works as famous Korean poets have praised these poems, among whom are Chung Ho-seung, Kim Yong-taik and Kim Ki-taek. This book will serve as a bridge between Korea and the United States, so that it will be a warm companion to all Korean immigrants in the U.S. Do you know why? His poems offer comfort to the immigrants, especially first-generation immigrants.

Kim Haeng-ja, former president of the Korean Poets and Writers Group, is a pharmacist who made her literary debut by winning the New Young Poet Contest, Shinchunmunye, hosted by the JoongAng Ilbo during her freshman year at Sookmyung Women’s University in 1968. She has written a few books of poetry in Korean. She can be reached at haengjakim@gmail.com