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| Poet Choi Yearn-hong / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Kwak Yeon-soo
Choi Yearn-hong, a poet who was committed to promoting Yun Dong-ju, one of the most respected Korean poets in modern history, in the United States, has died of a chronic disease in Baltimore. He was 79.
His death was confirmed by Choi Hyuk, his younger brother and former ambassador to Geneva, Thursday.
A memorial service for Choi will be held remotely via Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Choi, a native of Yeongdong, North Chungcheong Province, made his literary debut in 1963, while studying at Yonsei University in Seoul. He then moved to the U.S. where he earned master's and doctorate degrees in political science and public administration at Indiana University.
Choi taught at several U.S. colleges, including the University of Wisconsin, Old Dominion University and the University of the District of Columbia, and he also taught at the University of Seoul before retiring in 2006.
He also worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as Assistant for Environmental Quality from 1981 to 1983.
During his lifetime, Choi devoted himself to celebrating Yun, also known as a patriotic poet who was most prolific during the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule of the peninsula and whose works evoked nostalgia for times of peace as well as independence.
Choi translated and published Yun's major poems, including "Star-counting Night," "Self-Portrait," "Easily Written Poem" and "Prelude," into English. He was the founder of both the Korean Poets and Writers Group and the Korean-American Poets' Group in Washington, D.C.
A prolific writer himself, Choi won the Yun Dong-ju Literature Award in 2009 and was the recipient of Yun Dong-ju Poetry Award in 2016 for his poetry book, "Incan Woman." In 1994, he became the first poet from Korea to be invited to read at the Library of Congress.
Choi published several English poetry books including "Autumn Vocabularies" (1990) and "Moon of New York" (2008). He also wrote Korean poetry books such as "White Cotton-tailed Deer" (2015).
He was one of the longest-serving columnists at The Korea Times, sharing his insights on cultural and social issues.
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