Poets' Village in the National Park

[이 정]

6th Nov., 2008 (Tue.) Sunny

The other day I'd been to 치악 Mountain National Park.

As from the first day of 2007, every National Park is open to public free of charge.

In stead of the ticket office I found a Poets' Village.

In Poets' Village, they collected 500 poems of 100 Korean poets.

And with the poems they published 10 small anthology of poems.

They stock the anthologies in the office with some leaflets which providing people with tips for 치악 National Park.

I borrowed one anthology from the office of Poets' Village, because the anthologies are not for sale like the leaflets. 

In the book I borrowed, I found a poem of 안도현, The Space, 간격 in Korean.

I was deeply moved by that poem. The poem gave me a new way of looking at myself and others.

Recently I read an article on the newspaper. The title of the article was "Literature is leaving from us."

The writer says, certainly we have had times when literature plays an important role guiding the spirit of the times.

After Japanese colony as well as after the Korean War, literature gave people light or showed the way to where we go.

At that time, literature suggested the way and helped people to find the way out of difficulties.

But these days people turn their face away from literature.

Just as for me. I have read poetry during my school days but now I have no room for poetry.

So, the Poets' Village was felt for me as a fresh hit.

The Poets' Village helped me to bring back  precious memories about poetry, and I was very happy.

Why don't you relish the poem The Space with me?

                          간격

                                                              안도현

    숲을 멀리서 바라보고 있을 때는 몰랐다

     나무와 나무가 모여

     어깨와 어깨를 대고
     숲을 이루는 줄 알았다

     나무와 나무 사이

     넓거나 좁은 간격이 있다는 걸

     생각하지 못했다

     벌어질 대로 최대한 벌어진,

     한데 붙으면 도저히 안 되는,

     기어이 떨어져 서 있어야 하는,

     나무와 나무 사이

     그 간격과 간격이 모여

     울울창창 숲을 이룬다는 것을

     산불이 휩쓸고 지나간

     숲에 들어가 보고서야 알았다

[펌킨]

Hi Resina!Thanks for giving me a chance to relish a good poem"The space". I often think about relationship with the space among people and I try to accept peoples' space and difference.

[ji young]

I don't like reading a kind of poem. Because the words in poem have a lot of meanings and the meanings can be undersood in many different ways according to people who read it. But this poem you put in here is very touching and makes me think about many things.

[sunnihwang]

Recently, I watched 조 정래 on TV. He said that in Korean Literature, the most difficult thing is to write poetry and then essay ,the last one is criticism. Therefore, to make short what we think is really hard and great works. In the middle of his interview, he said proudly, his wife was a poet. Actually, what's his opinion? Veronica

[웰컴샘]

Thank you very much for your wonderful poem. I really enjoyed it.