[Kim Seong-kon] Purify your tainted mind with poetry

Koreans love poetry. Students like to memorize and chant the lovely poems of Kim So-wol, Kim Young-rang and So Chong-ju, and idolize living poets such as Shin Kyong-rim, Hwang Tong-gyu, and Kim Chi-ha. Few overseas poets make a living by writing poems only. But in Korea there are poets who make a fortune by publishing a collection of poems. Unlike American commercial publishers who are reluctant to publish books of poems, Korean publishers enthusiastically print collections of poems and prosper.

Despite the unpopularity of poetry books in the market these days, English poems are often stunningly exquisite and sometimes alter our lives, leaving an everlasting impact on us. For example, those who seek romantic utopia will be fascinated by W. B. Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" which begins:

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree/ And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;/ Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,/ And live alone in the bee-loud glade."

And those who are disillusioned by and lament the dark side of human civilization may like Allen Ginsberg's "Howl": "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked/ Dragging themselves through Negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix."

Or they may be fond of Robert Lowell's confessional poem, "Skunk Hour": "The season's ill / My mind's not right/ A car radio bleats,/ 'Love, O careless Love … ' I hear/ my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,/ as if my hand were at its throat … / I myself am hell;/ nobody's here "

An arrogant person who despises his surroundings may be encouraged by reading Ezra Pound's "Hugh Selwyn Mauberly":

"For three years, out of key with his time,/ He strove to resuscitate the dead art/ Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"/ In the old scene. Wrong from the start No, hardly, but seeing he had been born / In a half-savage country, out of date;/ Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn."

Meanwhile, those who grieve about the evanescence of youth will be touched by William Wordsworth's lovely lines, widely known thanks to the movie "Splendour in the Grass":

"Though nothing can bring back the hour/ Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;/ We will grieve not, rather find/ Strength in what remains behind."

By the same token, they will be moved by Yeats' poem "Sailing to Byzantium":

"That is no country for old men. The young/ In one another's arms, birds in the trees/ ― Those dying generations at their song,/ An aged man is but a paltry thing,/ A tattered coat upon a stick, unless/ Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing."

Those who love powerful poetic images will be enchanted by William Blake's visionary poem, "The Tyger":

"Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright/ In the forests of the night,/ What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

And those who cherish the romantic dreams of the sea will be greatly inspired by John Masefield's "Sea-fever":

"I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,/ And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,/ And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,/ And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking."

If you like serene, meditative poems of wisdom, you will love Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken":

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood/ And sorry I could not travel both/ And be one traveler/ Long I stood/ And I looked down one as far as I could/ To where it bent in the undergrowth./"

Or you may cherish Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening":

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep./ But I have promises to keep,/ And miles to go before I sleep,/ And miles to go before I sleep."

If you are attracted to pedantic modernist poems, you will surely be thrilled by T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land": "April is the cruelest month, breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/ Memory and desire, stirring/ Dull roots with spring rain./ Winter kept us warm, covering/ Earth in forgetful snow, feeding/ A little life with dried tubers."

Someone who intensely misses his or her friend will probably enjoy Emily Dickinson's poem "I should not dare to leave my friend":

"I should not dare to leave my friend,/ Because because if he should die/ While I was gone, and I too late / Should reach the heart that wanted me;"

And someone who falls in love will surely remember the love song of Elizabeth Browning:

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways./ I love thee to the depth and breadth and height/ My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight."

Why do we need poetry? Good poems quench our thirsty souls and drench our parched spirits. They also give us profound insight into our present reality and contemporary society. Poetry gives us not only wisdom of life to live by, but also catharsis that purifies our tainted minds.

Kim Seong-kon, a professor of English at Seoul National University, is president of the Association of Korean University Presses. ― Ed.