Ko Un

Ko Un

Ko Un (born 1933, Korea) is “a demon-driven Bodhisattva of Korean poetry, as Allen Ginsberg wrote, “exuberant, abundant, obsessed with poetic creation”.

Ko Un masters the fine art of adorning small, utterly concrete images with possible meanings that go well beyond the ‘said’, and nevertheless take it seriously. His poetry is open and precise, personal and timeless, exploring poetics and politics at the same time. It balances between classical forms and unpretentious everyday speech. In it, the scenic and the aphoristic, the contemporary and the traditional, culture and nature, all interlock.

Ko Un’s life is marked by biographical breaks, all closely related to recent Korean history. In the war against Japan, Ko Un was conscripted into the Korean People’s Army. His traumatic experiences in the war led to a suicide attempt. He entered a Buddhist monastery, where he quickly rose from a mendicant monk to a member of the central committee of the National Association of Buddhist Monks, and in 1957 he founded a newspaper in which his first poems appeared. In 1962 however, he decided to give up his monk’s life and founded a non-profit school for socially disadvantaged children.

In the mid-60s however, a phase full of self-doubt began, which culminated in a second suicide attempt, and which only came to an end in 1973, as Ko Un took on a leading role in the Korean Democracy Movement. He fell under the spotlight of the Secret Service, was taken into custody, tortured, prosecuted for high treason and in 1980 was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. He was only set free after two years because of a general amnesty, and has lived since then in South Korea.

He has been awarded numerous international prizes and honours and is today one of the most important poets in Asia. Ko has published over 130 books: poetry anthologies, novels, essays, translations and criticism. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages.

Bibliography (Selected)

Ten Thousand Lives, Green Integer 2005
The Three Way Tavern, UC Press 2006
Flowers of a Moment: 185 brief poems, BOA Editions, 2006
Abiding Places, Korea North & South, Tupelo 2006
Songs for Tomorrow: A Collection of Poems 1961-2001, Green Integer 2009
Himalaya Poems, Green Integer 2010

Awards (Selected)

Korean Literature Prize, 1974
Manhae Literary Prize, 1989
Joongang Literary Prize, 1991
Daesan Literary Prize, 1994
Manhae Poetry Prize, 1998
Buddhist Literature Prize, 1999
Danjae Prize, 2004
Cikada Prize, 2006
Cikada Prize 2006
Griffi Poetry Prize 2008