Baek Seok

Perhaps the best way to review this book is to look at a few lines from one or two of Baek Seok’s poems:*******************PalwonOn a frigid morningThe bus bound for Myohyang Mountain, hollow and vacanta little lass ascends...Beyond the crystal white windows of the frozen busGiving an impression of a native territory commander, (Japanese person, perhaps a real or imagined official, during Japanese occupation) an adult and two youth await her....In the corner of the hollow emptiness on that bus, some lone person sheds a tearThat sad lass some several years at that native territory commanders houseCooking rice and washing rags and looking after those youngstersEven on such a cold morning with hands frozen hardWashing rags in icy water (p. 172)********************I have been in Korea in January and February. I have some idea of how cold it can be. This poem evokes almost too real memories of that cold. It makes you shiver and you can almost feel your shoes or boots make a sound walking through the snow — crrrrruuuunnncchh, crrrrruuuunnncchh, crrrrruuuunnncchh. I can hear the sound of the thin layer of ice crack as this girl breaks the ice to wash things. It tapped my memory and took me to a time when I stepped on a fairly deep puddle of water over which a sheet of ice had formed. Of course, the ice broke. Ah, to make a long story short, by the time i got home my foot was just about frozen. Yes, his poetry is evocative.My wife (now passed) was born in Korea. Although she was born in 1944 and the Japanese occupation ended in 1945, she had been told so many stories about the Japanese occupiers that it was almost as if she lived through it. Essentially, Koreans were treated as indentured servants. In the worst cases the Japanese treated the Koreans like subhumans. Baek Seok is not known as a resistance poet, but in this poem he could have been.A few more lines from another poem:****************The Things I think...However, upon this white mattress, I look upon thin forearmsWith bright blue veins, I ponder my having a poor fatherThat the maiden I’d longed for was wedAnd the occasion of a close caring companion was abandoning me (p. 166)****************Again, pathos is at play. Baek Seok had an interesting and an apparently extensive love life. His first love may have been a woman with whom he lived in Seoul when he was 23. But, it is more perhaps more likely that he fell more deeply in love with a Kiseng, Kim Jin Hyang, whom he called Jaya at age 24. That did not stop the young poet from succumbing to familial pressure and marrying a girl from his hometown. Jaya, found out that he had married and left him. Two years later he married again and Jaya — who had apparently taken him back— dumped him again. He seems to have had difficulty being faithful.While his romantic life was complicated, that did not stop him from writing, reading and being very involved in literary circles. It seems likely that he read Japanese, some English, and some Russian. He also very likely had a knowledge of Chinese and more than a passing familiarity with Chinese poetry.The influence of Shamanism and Buddhism are strong in Baek Seok’s poetry. But, what really sets his poetry apart is his ability to capture the life of everyday people and the beauty of nature. Thus, when he speaks of things like the sights and sounds of village markets, drying fish in a coastal village, or squid being readied for simmering with wild greens or ferns gathered from fields or forests you have a real sense of being there in that moment and place. It is clear that Baek Seok was a remarkable observer of people and things around him and that he had a remarkable ability to transform his observations into poetry. In so doing, he opens a window into the rich mosaic of everyday life in Korea from the mid to late 1900s.To come full circle, a few lines from another poet, Amy Lowell, seem appropriate:**************FragmentWhat is poetry? Is it a mosaic Of coloured stones which curiously are wrought Into a pattern? Rather glass that’s taught By patient labor any hue to take And glowing with a sumptuous splendor, make Beauty a thing of awe ...****************i’m pretty certain Peter Liptak found Baek Seok’s poetry a “thing of awe.” I know I did.