Wednesday, October 11, 2006

A look at ...

... Ko Un. Who knows, maybe he'll win the Nobel tomorrow.

1 comment:

  1. At the Dodge Poetry Festival ten days ago, I walked away from the main tent where the poet of the moment was speaking from, and from where the poem was broadcast over speakers in the vicinity outside the tent. This was a good idea, because the main tent was quite packed and would get a little hot inside, but also so people could hear as they got food or bought books and such in other tents. But for me, I needed to walk away for a while, just detach, so I went through the large eating area, and then down to the waterway.

    Here are some pictures of the area at January O'Neil's blog:

    Poet Mom: Waterloo

    As I got to the canal area near the mill, I spotted Ko Un and his beautiful wife Lee Sanghwa coming toward me. They gave me a warm greeting. In other words, if their body language was such that they wanted not to be greeted, I wouldn't have. But, quite the contrary, it was I who got the smile and hello from them first. We chatted fairly briefly. What a wonderful couple.

    Earlier in the day, I had attended the session on "Poet as Citizen" with Jorie Graham, Mark Doty, and Ko Un on the panel. Ko Un was last to begin his time to speak, and led in with the idea that maybe a poet should not be a citizen. And he listed some poets, some who considered themselves royalty, and some who didn't like people at all.

    To be a poet, then, is a miserable fate. In fact, he had attempted suicede four times. Jeez it's late so my brain isn't all the way on, but there was a resolution that he came to, a poet's breakthrough that he had. And he lives it in his walks by the waterways with Lee, and the way he greets the world as he did me. A great guy.

    When he would read his poems, he would be reading in Korean, but it was a pleasure to see him do it, so expressively, dramatically. You might think that a small poem like Echo, might be softly done, but his face becomes very expressive an d he uses his hands as he gives the poem like a great storyteller over to the audience--in a way that shows the highest respect for the poem and the audience. Then the interpreter tells us in English what he just said.

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