Distant Valleys: Poems of Chŏng Chi-yong (review)

Abstract

270KOREAN STUDIES, VOL. 20 burn's analysis as their South Vietnamese reflections do in Hwang's novel. (Recent revelations of financial improprieties by Vietnam veterans Chun Doohwan and Roh Tae-woo have only reinforced that image.) Nevertheless, South Korea's gain on the sale of its soldiers' lives has been dwarfed many times over by the astronomical gains of the biggest and most cynical profiteers of all—U.S. arms manufacturers. The Vietnam War marked a watershed in the history of American politics . Its importance can be measured by the huge body of fact and fiction that Americans have produced on the subject. Although the war also marked a turning point in the development of South Korea's economy, Koreans have produced too few facts and too little fiction on the topic. After democracy is more firmly in place in South Korea, perhaps we will see more. But Hwang's conviction and imprisonment under the notorious National Security Law after returning from a trip to North Korea in 1993 is one of many indications that South Korean political life still has a way to go. Joel Bradshaw University of Hawai'i Distant Valleys: Poems of Chöng Chi-yong, translated by Daniel A. Kister. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1994. 168 pp. $14.00 paper. It was, I recall, early summer of 1947 that I first met the poet Chöng Chiyong. An older friend arranged a meeting for me, and I was told to look for a house with a tiger painting on the front gate. After some blocks from the last stop of a tramcar at Tonam-dong, I finally located a house with a painting of a tiger at the upper part of the entrance. I was led into a small room where the small spectacled poet received me courteously and began to answer my queries. According to his estimate, the three major poets of modern Korea include Im Hwa (1908-53), Kim Kirim (b. 1908), and Chöng himself (b. 1903). He advised younger poets against publishing their work in book form, adding, "Now that the people's front surrounds us, you should refrain from publishing this kind of (nonideological) book." He was then in the besieged-garrison or enemies -were-within-the-gate mentality. Then we were joined by two of Chöng's friends, one of whom came to request the poet's calligraphy for the cover of his forthcoming collection of stories. Chöng was wont to say whenever his friends dropped by, "I wish I had some wine!" even before noon! Did Aeschylus not drink wine while writing his plays? Our own examples nearer home include Juan Chi, T'ao Ch'ien, Li Po, Yi Ilio, Yi Kyubo and Chöng Ch'öl. Contrary to a commonly held view of him as one with eccentric behavior and harsh words, I found him speaking frankly, with an honesty which was at times excruciating. BOOK REVIEWS271 Chöng was an idol for young lovers of literature and aspiring poets in the 30s and 40s. How they devoured his work, while praying for the Muse to descend upon them. It was difficult not to imitate his style and diction. Only after a release from the master's poetic spell could young poets find their own voice. Almost everyone writing till the late 40s is indebted to him, not only the modernists but the nature poets, particularly those belonging to the Green Deer group. His relentless accuracy of observation, total response to experience , luminous depth of feeling, inimitable imagery and diction, and ability to impose a formal pattern upon the rhythm and images and turn into poetry everything he touches—these are qualities that made him a major compelling voice. He is the first truly successful modern poet, the master assimilator of the music of the language and tireless explorer of its beauty. Every one of his poems is arrestingly modern in its sensibility, and never fails to make us see and feel the objects evoked in a fresh, surprising, and inventive way. It is for these reasons that I turned to Kister's translations with expectations . Distant Valleys contains 115 poems, "chosen to display the variety...