"Remembered as a Central Figure in Modern Poetry..." Large Release of Unpublished Poems by Park Mokwol

Creative Notes Revealed 46 Years After Death
Eldest Son: "More New Attempts and Unpublished Works"
Posthumous Works Publication Committee: "Park Mokwol's Literature Shows Freshness"

"I felt that these materials were necessary to comprehensively examine the life of my poet father." A total of 290 unpublished poems by Park Mokwol (1915?1978), a master of Korean poetry, have been belatedly revealed.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 12th, Park Donggyu, the eldest son and professor emeritus at Seoul National University, organized and disclosed the unpublished poems from the 1930s to the 1970s contained in eighty notebooks left by his father, with the help of junior scholars, at the Korea Press Center in Jung-gu, Seoul. The creative notebooks, appearing 46 years after Park Mokwol’s death, consist of sixty-two notebooks kept at Park’s home and eighteen notebooks stored at the Dongri Mokwol Literature Museum in Gyeongju, Gyeongbuk. There are 318 completed works written in total. Excluding previously published poems, there are 290 unpublished poems.

On this day, 166 poems were released, noted for their high literary quality, diverse themes, and clear depiction of the creative process. These were selected by the Park Mokwol Posthumous Works Publication Committee, composed of professors Woo Jungkwon (Dankook University), Bang Minho (Seoul National University), Park Deokgyu (Dankook University, emeritus), Yoo Seongho (Hanyang University), and Jeon Soyoung (Hongik University, invited professor), who have been classifying and analyzing the works since August last year. Professor Park said, "There seems to be more experimentation and new attempts in these (unpublished) works," adding, "I thought the process of my father revising and revising his poems might itself be poetry, which gave me the courage to publish them."

"I honestly feel scared, thinking my father might ask from heaven, 'Why did you do this?' I also wonder if he didn’t want to publish these unpublished manuscripts during his lifetime. I felt I could not go against his wishes. As his son, I am not in a position to make literary judgments. I have witnessed the process of him writing these notebooks since childhood. He would write poems at night, revise them again and again. All of that is recorded in order in the notebooks. My father found it very difficult to publish poetry collections during his lifetime, so he published only a few."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The creative notebooks were preserved intact thanks to his late mother, Yu Iksoon. Professor Park recalled, "We moved many times during my childhood?from Gyeongju to Daegu to Seoul. We experienced the Korean War, fled, and returned again. Each time, my mother carried my father’s notebooks wrapped in bundles." He added, "As the poet’s wife, she was determined to keep them safe. Even after my father passed away, she kept them well under the wardrobe for 20 years. I did nothing."

The themes of the unpublished poems include daily life, Christian faith, family and mother, love, Jeju and Gyeongju, childhood innocence, and the poet’s life. The 1939 poem "Mochun (Late Spring)" shows the process of selecting and revising words in the notebook, giving insight into Park Mokwol’s early creative process. "Pyeweon," written in the late 1950s, expresses Park Mokwol’s longing for a person from his memories on the stone stairs of Jeongdong, Seoul. Other poems from the same period, such as "Tears" and "1958," are imbued with emotions of sorrow and loss. The collection also includes about thirty completed children’s poems such as "Kongkkoturi (Bean Pod)." Park Mokwol is well known for many children’s poems, including the widely beloved "Eolluk Songaji (Spotted Calf)."

The Posthumous Works Publication Committee explained, "The prose-like form of the poems, the historical upheavals of liberation and war, activities as a wartime literary soldier, hope for the homeland and future, and the reality of inner sorrow and loss are the new aspects of Park Mokwol’s literature revealed in these newly discovered works." They added, "We aim to popularize poetry culture by integrating it with modern media," and "We will seek ways to preserve the originality of the handwritten poems without damage and ensure they are widely conserved as cultural heritage for future generations." After further research, the handwritten notebooks will be made public, and various activities to promote Park Mokwol’s literary world will be undertaken.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Professor Park urged, "Please remember that my father’s entire life was intertwined with poetry. From the dark period after liberation until the moment he passed away, he lived with poetry as a central figure of the first generation of modern Korean poetry." Park Mokwol is a representative Korean poet and lyricist known for works such as "Nageune (Traveler)," "Cheongnoru (Blue Deer)," "Ibyeolga (Farewell Song)," and "Yunsawol." He mainly wrote lyric poems focusing on nature. Shortly after liberation, he published the poetry collection "Cheongnokjip" with poets Jo Jihoon and Park Doojin, and was called a Cheongnokpa (Blue-Green Group) poet.

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