Passion for life pierces Yu's poems

Poet Yu Chi-whan (1908-1967)

Yu Chi-hwan's poems translated into English

By Chung Ah-young

Renowned for his representative poem "Flag", Yu Chi-whan (1908-1967) was one of the most prolific poets in the 20th century in Korea. Born in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, he was not only a leading poet but also a school teacher and a brother of Yu Chi-jin, a prominent playwright.

Yu wrote more than 160 poems and published 10 anthologies of his poetry during his lifetime.

A collection of his carefully selected poems has recently been translated into English by Lee Sung-il, a professor emeritus of English literature at Yonsei University. The title of the poetry collection "Blue Stallion" was borrowed from Yu's penname "cheongma", which literally means a blue horse.

The translator began translations of Yu's poetry through an annual contest of translating modern Korean literature into English organized by The Korea Times in 1970. His translations of Yu's works made him a prizewinner. "It was Yu Chi-whan's poetry that initiated me into the challenge of translating Korean poetry into English", Lee said in the preface.

The translations consisting of 80 pieces, including four - "Flag", "Rock", "Sun of My Life" and "Head" - translated by the late English professor Lee In-soo, Sung-il's father, are arranged in the chronological order of their original composition.

The common subject of his poetry deals the relationship of the sea, flowers, animals, rocks and human beings as part of nature because he was a representative member of the Life School (Saengmyeongpa) in modern Korean poetry. Through nature, he reveals sheer lyricism, life's struggle, the cynicism of social injustice, human absurdities and an acceptance of cosmic providence.
At the same time, his poetry is marked by passion for life and strong resistance to anything against life and nature. He finds the struggles of life leading to a sense of emptiness.

Yu's earlier works written during the Japanese colonial period (1910-45), as most poets of the time did, dealt with Japan's oppression of Korea, reflecting his agony created from a clash between the ideal world and reality.

With a deep sense of frustration and pathos from the nation's situation at that time, Yu manifested his existential search. "What impelled him to write poems was a desire to instill in his compatriots the spiritual vigor, the undaunted will to carry on life even in the harshest conditions", the book says.

His poetry often reveals the "communion between his microcosm and macrocosm" as well. The poet portrayed his solitude caught in the boundless expanse of time and space as the main theme.

In many early works, he took a nihilistic view on human existence, showing his lifelong struggle to confront the universe and to discover the meaning of the precarious human existence in the cosmic world. His poetic vision also captures both the grandeur of the universe and the nobility of the human souls in its struggle in such poems as "Life".

Life

In a single grain of sand
Rests the whole universe,
And in a single star twinkling
The vicissitude of a millennium.
In the boundless universe,
O this infinitesimal life of mine!
But as a being so infinitesimal,
How light-hearted I can be!

"In this poem, his life is comparable to a single grain of sand but in it the whole universe can be contained. It is a paradoxical line dictating the communion between his microcosm and the macrocosm", the translator wrote.

However, his visions of emptiness in the universe ironically led him to an affirmation of life and compassion for all that are doomed to die, rather than to pessimism. His poetic world reflects the voice of a prophet chanting the everlasting continuity of the primal force of life rather than indulgence in mellow sentiments. Yu wanted to share the very spiritual vigor and the will to live through hardships.

"His poetic vision, which enabled him to see the essence of the created world in the boundless void defying both time and space, led him to an insurmountable passion for earthly life - transitory yet precious for its transience - a humanistic zeal for the here and now. His nihilism was not a simple pessimism or a negation of life. Paradoxically, it was an attempt on his part to reach out for the affirmation of life", Lee wrote.