You are an accomplished writer of poetry, fiction, and literary criticism. What specifically attracts you to poetry?

Fundamentally, my poems are pieces of confessional literature. The inner part of the self in crisis is exposed via exaggeration and dysphemism. As I once said in 1995, writing a poem is like committing suicide in vain. It is a rebirth in a world filled with sin and gloominess, by way of poetic language. When writing poems, I feel that I am transported to a free and weightless world from a repressed and heavy reality. With the help of poetic expression, reality, like a black and white television, is transformed into a world of various color screens.

However, upon finishing a poem, finding myself still captive in a heavy world full of sin and gloominess, I’m overwhelmed by melancholy. I continue to search for poems and write them in order to free myself from repression and melancholy. Thus, for me, poetry is the pursuit of the moment when water evaporates.

In your opinion, what role do poets and poetry play in South Korea? How has the role of poets and poetry in Korea changed over time?

Poets received a particularly high esteem in Korea, due to the Confucian tradition that placed high social value on scholars (Seonbi 선비). Scholars in the Josen Dynasty valued the study of humanities and showed their noble spirit by writing Sijo (시조), a short poem prevalent at the time, which contained their philosophy and sentiment. Poets were looked at favorably because of their spiritual purity, high integrity, and because they were considered to be men of pure courage and linguistic competence who would never lower themselves to worldly demands.

On the basis of this tradition, when democratic and anti-governmental protests broke out in the 1970s and 80s under the military dictatorship, many poets made sacrifices and contributions for the benefit of the democratic movements. In this way, poets had great influence over issues of social reform and the public, feeling indebted to their sacrifices, respected them even more. A number of this era’s influential poet activists became celebrities, for example, Kim Ji-ha (김지하), Ko Un (고은), Kim Nam-ju (김남주), and Ko Jung-hee (고정희).

However, nowadays the prestige of poets in Korean society has been downgraded substantially. As poetry comes up against the capitalist market paradigm, poets are relegated to an abject existence in a neoliberal world.