Desert Poems: Hogill Kim's first sijo poetry

“Desert Poems,” Hogill Kim. American Star Books, 2016 / Courtesy of the writer

By Choi Yearn-hong

I would like to congratulate Korean-American poet Hogill Kim for his first book of “sijo” poetry. I have reviewed a few books of Korean traditional poetry, ranging from “Golden Orioles,” a poem by Goguryeo’s second king, Yuri, to the works of many other splendid poets from the Goryeo and Chosun Kingdoms in this space and others. A Korean pilot, Hogill Kim immigrated to the United States and until today continues to write sijo poetry in the same spirit that he had nurtured in Korea. I met him in the early 1980s in Los Angeles, where he is also based.

Kim is the first Korean pilot-poet, writing many poems in his native Korean language when he’s not flying across the sky. He cultivates furrows in the clouds, from which bloom his beautiful poetic flowers. I remember reading his first book of poetry, “Diary Written in the Clouds,” which was published some 40 years ago. With his new book, he lands on the earth to explore a new terrain of poetry for his gold and silver mines. As a matter of fact, he is a farmer-poet who uses a shovel, hoe and plow to grow his own poetry on land.

He flew over the vast sky and crossed the Pacific Ocean to immigraate to the United States in the 1970s. After a stint as a journalist in Los Angeles, he moved to Ontario, California, to start a small farm. In 1988, he also started a satellite farm at La Paz, Baja California Sur, in Mexico. He had his share of fortunes and misfortunes as a farmer. His life is composed of a series of challenges and responses. His dynamic experiences, among other things are what fascinated me in his half- a century as a poet.

Kim won first place in the first poetry contest he entered at the Gaechon Literary Festival in 1963. Then, he served his military duty as an army pilot and as a faculty member at the Army Aviation School, eventually becoming a Korean Air pilot. In 1970, he served as a combat helicopter pilot in Vietnam and then retired from the army as a captain. He went on to become a Korean Airlines pilot, flying B-707s and B-747s for more than eight years.

His poetry extends from the sky to the good earth, and he constantly seeks new adventures in new frontiers. His long flying hours must have expanded his intellectual horizon and poetic world., and his diverse experiences cannot be easily matched by any other poet. His sweats and tears from his painful labor on the new foreign land and sky are all reflected in “Desert Poems.”

“Life and Death”

Everything in this land

Is glorious as they are .

Everything that lived and died

Is brilliant in their journey.

Everyone that’s still breathing

Is sanctified by their struggles.

The desert is not the best place for many living things — for the scorpions, snakes and cacti, perhaps, but not for human beings. Nevertheless, Kim created a farm on Mexican desert land, transforming the waste land into utopia or a poetic land. His new perspective on the desert has been the inspiration for his new poetry, in which life is glorious and brilliant with the struggles to overcome the waste land. Life is a series of long struggles., and this idea is his poetry on his desert. Life and death are all glorious with current and past struggles. Breathing and surviving in the desert are a beautiful victory over the struggles in life and death. In other words, life is beautiful with its struggles on the waste land is so much more.

“If Sorrow Is too Vast”

If sorrow is too vast,

Even tears dry up completely.

Tears are a luxury for a soul,

That exist when you can depend on something.

Only despair can be relied upon.

In the desert without water.

Writing poetry in his mother tongue. was Kim’s source of hope and was the only thing he could depend on.

In the desert of despair, over and over he entered long furrows, he could not cry. Tears were only a luxury for him for a long time.

“Approaching 70th Birthday”

Without realizing my fifties,

Sixties passed by quickly.

Like frost covered chrysanths,

Seventies is approaching soon.

“Ding!” A bell ringing like a razor,

Please don’t let me fall asleep.

Confucius once said, “Once you reach 70, you may act as you like. Doing so will not be a violation of any moral and legal codes.”

Kim is the only capable sijo poet in the United States. I admire his efforts to revive sijo poetry on this new land.

Dr. Choi is a Korean poet based in Washington D.C.