Nail – A Poem from Korea

nasiraijaz January 23, 2026

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The nail that once upheld the cross,

As much as it rusted,

My years too have rusted red.

Poet Dr. Koo Myongsook was born in Nonsan, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea. She graduated from Sookmyung Women’s University with a degree in Korean literature and later earned her Ph.D. in literature from Bielefeld University in Germany. She received the New Writer’s Award from the monthly literary magazine Simunhak in 1999 and from Poetry and Poetics in 2009.

She has held various academic and cultural leadership positions, including Visiting Professor at Soka University in Japan, Visiting Professor at Waseda University, Director of the Sookmyung Leadership Development Institute, Director of the Museum and Cultural Center, President of the Korean Women’s Literary Association, Chief Editor of Our Literature, Chairperson of the Korea Gender Equality Education Promotion Institute, Policy Advisory Member for the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Mediator at the Seoul Family Court, Chief Editor of Siseon, Director of the Literature House Seoul, and Vice President of the Korean Women’s Literary Association.

Currently, she is an Emeritus Professor at Sookmyung Women’s University, President of the Glocal Women’s Network, Director of the Korean Women’s Organizations Council, Director of the National Museum of Korean Literature, Advisory Member for Korea Women Consumers News, Senior Vice President of the Seocho Cultural Center, and Vice President of the World Poetry Literature Society. She serves as the 7th President of the Korean Association of World Literature.

Her poetry collections include How Many Bushels of Rice Has That Woman Washed to Cook?, Walking, Life Is, Sky Tree (selected as an excellent literary book in the 2014 Sejong Book Program), The Art of Flowers, You, Pietà, Heartfelt, Asking the Spring River off the Way of Poetry, and Where Do Clouds Go?.

Her academic publications include Understanding Korean Women’s Literature, The Horizon of Han Moo-sook’s Literature, Women Communicating Through Literature, A Collection of Women’s Literature (From Liberation to the 1960s) Vol. 1-6, Diaspora and Korean Literature, War-time Literary Discourse and the Reconstruction of Collective Memory, and edited works such as Anthology of Women’s Short Stories from the Liberation Period, Anthology of Korean Women’s Essays (1945-1953), Anthology of Korean War-Era Women’s Literature, Bibliography of Works by Korean Women Writers: From Liberation to the 1960s, and Selected Works of Representative Korean Women Poets.

She has received numerous awards, including the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Award, the Manhae “Nim” Poetry Award, the Excellence Award from Poetry and Poetics, the Seocho Writers’ Association Grand Prize, and the Grand Prize from the World Poetry Literature Society.