Lee Seo-bin's second poetry book, 'Moon's Orbit'

By Choi Yearn-hong

Poet Lee Seo-bin

I appreciate a Korean poet who mails his or her new poetry book to me. The book crossed the Pacific Ocean and the U.S. continent to reach my residence in Northern Virginia. It is a nice gift, but it is more than a gift, because it comes with it the special consideration of a senior poet living in a foreign country. This new poetry book was from Lee Seo-bin, whose name is so strange, that I could not myself distinguish the writer’s gender. Later, I learn that she is my dear friend’s protege.

Of course, she is a relatively young poet from my perspective. On New Year’ Day in 2014, it was announced that she won the DongA Ilbo’s Shinchun Munye (New Spring Literary Competition), the most coveted literary prize in Korea. In the early 1960s, as a young aspiring poet at Yonsei University, I submitted my poems to that competition. I made the final round twice but could not win.

The reviewers mentioned my name and my poem, saying “Sorry Choi, we can select only one winner.” Unfortunately, the second best entry did not receive a prize, which discouraged me. I gave up literary competitions, lamenting that I did not have talent to win. In my junior year, however, my mentor at Yonsei University recommended me to the Modern Literature Monthly, another venue in which to become a poet.

Ms. Lee made her prestigious debut in the Donga Ilbo competition, so I opened her book with admiration. Her poems are typical of the New Year Literary Competition winners. In modern times, the newspaper competition has promoted a certain style, ambiguous metaphysical languages and sophisticated techniques I could not comprehend. The competition in the 1960s was not like that. Now, I regrettably accept this modern trend in poetry. Lee is not very far from such a norm, but I can find more readable and understandable poems in the book. “Duck Watch,” the winning poem chosen by the Donga Ilbo, required background or motif explanation. I sent my question and she responded to me that she was motivated to write the poem by an abandoned wall clock with a duck in the pond on its face. I loved the end line, “night sky is one watch shining in the darkness.” But “Moon’s Orbit” is very readable. She compared the moon’s orbit and the Tibetan monk’s painful practice of austerities — creeping on a rough road with his body, standing up, and bowing whenever he makes one step forward. I found another good poem, “About Nothing.” In it, she was a philosopher seeking the emptiness of heart and soul and filling the new void. “0” means everything from the full moon to the universe. “0” also means nothing. “0” is a mystic number, starting all the numbers.

All in all, I enjoyed reading most of her poems.

I will choose one poem from this book, “From the Labor Party Building” (pages 110-111) for my sociopolitical discussion.

It seems to me that this poem was written from her visit of the North Korean Labor Party Building still standing in Chorwon, north of the 38th parallel. Chorwon was a city of North Korea before the Korean War broke out in 1950. At the end of the War, it became a part of South Korean territory. The building, which survived the war, has become a historical building that presents the tragedy of the war and has attracted tourists and poets.

The screams and crying out of tortures filled up the underground chamber.

Those who could not survive the tortures become mulberry trees.

Their blood solidified becomes red mulberry.

All tourists look like Dracula men and women with red lips after enjoying mulberry.

They are all anthropologists investigating the Labor Party Building as a prehistoric place.

The poet saw the bullet holes, the half-ruined building. She felt the pain to see one nation divided like two branches of one mulberry tree. Then, she seemed to blame both sides for failing to reduce the tension and tragedy. Why? I could not comprehend her thinking process after the first paragraph. She may represent the mind of many young South Korean people. Unfortunately, I do not agree with her thoughts. I do not want to blame North and South Korea evenly or equally, because the North has been causing many serious problems against peaceful coexistence and cooperation. My question with regard the North and South: Which side is threatening the peaceful balance of power? Or which is actively seeking a peaceful reconciliation and eventually unification? Are poets supposed to be neutral? I don’t know. Poets are men and woman of compassion, but the North Korean regime does not deserve the poets’ compassion. They should see the wasteland of literature in North Korea, which consists only of Communist Party-controlled literature. They should see North Korea’s nuclear bombs and submarine-launched long-range missiles. I cannot be neutral to the two Koreas. But I try to be fair to both.

The half-ruined building that had witnessed the war must be a symbol, a metaphor of the divided nations. I vividly remember the moment when I first crossed the 38th parallel as a young army lieutenant in Yeonchon. It was 1984. Later, I wrote a series of poems, “DMZ,” in which deer and other wild animals were killed when they stepped on the mines buried during the Korean War.

We, both poets and non-poets, see the DMZ and border land in sorrow. We should see things clearly. What is going on in the North and the South? Neutrality is not fairness at all in this case. This is my small message to Lee and my fellow Korean poets.

Dr. Choi is a Washington D.C.-based poet.