By Mark Peterson
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In the last month I've been invited to two, count them! two!, conferences on sijo. The first was in Korea, in the tiny town of Cheongdo, south of Daegu, where a prominent sijo poet and even-more prominent artist, Min Byoung-do, has a studio. He put together an international conference on sijo. And two weeks after that, I spoke at a conference on teaching sijo for secondary school teachers held in Chicago sponsored by the Sejong Cultural Society, based in Chicago. A little bit about the two conferences:
The Cheongdo conference was all in Korean, and was "international" in that there was one guest from America, and two from Taiwan. I was the American representative and had the honor of giving two talks ― the first titled "The Importance of Sijo," and the second, "The Future of Sijo." Attending the conference were poets and literary critics from all across the peninsula ― they came from Seoul, Andong, Incheon, Daegu and there was a busload from Busan.
In my first talk I spoke of some of the things I've written about here in this column in the last five weeks, of how sijo is probably the best representation of Korean literature to world literature, and how sijo can be benefited by following the success of haiku in the English-speaking world. I spoke of the power of sijo to express a wide range of emotions and feelings ― from love to loyalty and everything in between. I gave the example I accidently discovered when I was telling a stranger about sijo, and recited one to him, only to find that in doing so, the noisy banquet room fell silent ― the sijo took over the room.
In the second talk, I spoke of the future of sijo and my hopes for, and my efforts to, revive the study of sijo in Korean classrooms. I reiterated by call for sijo contests at every school in Korea, with judging by outside specialists, whereby 10 or 20 "winners" would be given appropriate points they can apply to their college entrance exams. This proposal would put sijo back into the schools as a vital part of education, and would add a "creativity" aspect ― not just memorization ― to the college entrance process.
In the Chicago conference, secondary school teachers from all over the U.S. were invited to learn strategies and methodology for teaching sijo in the American classroom. The conference was sponsored by a private organization, the Sejong Cultural Society (http://www.sejongculturalsociety.org) and by the East Asian Studies program at Indiana University with funding from NCTA (the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia; http://nctasia.org).
The conference helped extend the power of teaching sijo in American secondary schools. The new-to-sijo teachers were taught by me, and three teachers who are currently, and successfully teaching sijo in their classrooms today. The three teachers were selected because it has been their students who had disproportionately been winning the Sejong Cultural Society sijo writing contest every year. They are Elizabeth Jorgensen from Wisconsin, Chuck Newell from Tennessee, and Deb Holland from Colorado ― as you can see, they come from a wide range of places in America.
The sijo movement ― Can I call it a "movement"? I hope so ― is not a phenomenon for Korean-American students. Students with Korean ties or roots only comprise 10 percent, or less, of the applicants in the sijo contest each year. We have some indications that sijo is starting to take root in America.
Of course, now, the objective is going to be to try to get sijo ― as a living poetic form ― to take hold in Korea. The writing of sijo is not taught in Korean schools, I am told. Sijo is taught only as an archaic and dead art, and student memorize the masterpieces written 500 years ago. But they do not participate in the creativity and creative exercise of writing sijo.
And here is the irony, Korean society is critical of its otherwise-excellent educational system, by pointing out that Korea has not produced a Nobel Prize winner in the arts or sciences ― only the one Peace Prize garnered by Kim Dae-jung. The criticism says that the student only concentrate on memorization skills in order to pass the standardized multiple-choice exam for college entrance, thus creating a "cookie cutter" product, rather than a creative, innovative, ability-to-think product, if it's okay to speak of students as "products".
School-based contests, or for that matter, out-of-school contests, judged fairly and objectively, can become part of the college entrance examination process. Points from winning a sijo-writing contest, and thereafter, other creative activities (essay writing, science fair displays, musical performance, and more) can follow and be used as part of the college entrance exam and point system.
And sijo can lead the way.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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