Ku Sang
| Born | September 16, 1919 |
|---|---|
| Died | May 11, 2004 (aged 84) |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | South Korean |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 구상 |
|---|---|
Ku Sang (born and died in Seoul; September 16, 1919 - May 11, 2004) was a Korean poet, considered one of Korea's most respected and trusted poets.
Ku Sang was raised in Wonsan, in South Hamgyeong Province which is now situated in North Korea. His parents were Catholic and his older brother was a priest, but after studying in Japan he had a crisis of faith and only returned to Catholicism later in life. Ku returned to the area of his up-bringing, working as a journalist and writer. His efforts to publish his poetry just after the end of the Second World War were met with resistance from the Communist authorities and he fled to the south. Ku served as assistant director of the writers' group that was deployed to cover the activities of the South Korean military during the Korean War. He also served as editor-in-chief of The Yeongnam Ilbo, editorial writer for the Kyunghyang Shinmun, and as a lecturer on poetry at Chung-Ang University. He was a member of the Korean Academy of Arts. Ku Sang died on May 11, 2005.
Ku suffered from tuberculosis.
Ku Sang began writing poetry as a university student. His first poetic publications were in a volume put out by the Wonsan Writers League. These poems were severely criticized by the Communist party in the north, and he fled south.
He also wrote essays on literature, social issues and religion. Later in life, he edited anthologies of literature. A number of his poetic works trace his life in Korea's history. Many of these poems are collected in Even the Knots on Quince Trees.
Scholars have remarked on the directness and lack of linguistic play in his poetry (e.g., "Ku Sang's poetic language is extremely clear for he uses very direct and candid expressions",). According to Brother Anthony, an authority on Korean poetry, his "poetry is marked by a rejection of the refined symbolism and artificial rhetoric found in the often more highly esteemed work of poets such as So Chong-ju. Instead, Ku Sang ...[often] begins his poems with the evocation of a personal moment of perception, in the midst of the city or of nature, and moves from there to considerations of more general import, where the poem frequently turns into a meditation on the presence of Eternity in the midst of time". Some of the themes of his poetry include pollution of the environment, health, and spirituality.
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