By Ashraf Aboul-Yazid

In an exceptional meeting, I had the chance to receive the great Anthology dedicated to the iconic Korean poet Ko Un celebrating his 90th birthday.

The front book cover of the Anthology with the title ‘He is Beyond Our Longing’, which is 440-page long, has the contribution from 202 poets, artists, both home and abroad, and intellectuals and cultural people.

It was wonderful moments when Ko Un read the poem I dedicated to him on this occasion, publish in pages 190-191, commenting that everyone loved it.

I wrote

Ko Un | The Man Who Climbed the Himalayas

The man who climbed the Himalayas

To pluck clouds from the grove of Tibet

Coloring some of them to make butterflies

Distilling others to become rain

Irrigating his notebook by words

In a heavy rain

Nobody feels

A lonely drop of water.

From Kathmandu I was watching

The man who climbed the Himalayas

My plane was flying by

As he was making snow birds with gloves

He whispered in their mouth, sending them, joyfully, flying towards me,

Tweeting his name.

The man who climbed the Himalayas

His feet drew a map of love and hope

On the white ground

Oh! He’s building something!

Is it a tower? Or is it a pagoda?

Is it a monastery? Or is it a temple?

Is it a church? Or is it a mosque?

No. It’s a heart, where

A thousand and one life live.

The commemorative anthology ends with my words: ”My dear great poet Ko Un is my mentor. When I was asked to name a great poet, the only name that came to mind was the iconic name of Ko Un. Although we only met once, I have been living with his Words for many years.”

Thanks for his wife, Lee Sang-Wha, the Emeritus Professor at Chung-Ang University, who translated my poem and notes into Korean. She has published six translations into Korean of literary works, including two of works by Gary Snyder. She has collaborated with Brother Anthony on several volumes of translations of work by Ko Un.

One of the surprises Lee Sang-Wha had in the 90th birthday party was giving a book she wrote to her partner. The front book cover of her love poems, dedicated to Ko Un as ‘a surprise’, the title is Joy with Ko Un. The book’s title and painting are hers (the title of her painting is Ko Un’s Hands. He is writing on a blank page against the sky).

We had a special time to know a lot of our poet, as an artist and a calligrapher, the two couple will definitely have a daughter who has become an artist herself. The house looks like a poetic gardens where verses dance with colors, the portraits created by Sang Wha, the hanged calligraphy stripes by Ko Un and the paintings in acrylic by their daughter.

On a nice corner there was the final volume of English Maninbo, published on Ko Un’s birthday to celebrate his ninety lives.

The celebration took place on July 26 in a huge Ecology School auditorium in Yang Pyeong, near Seoul, and some 200 people– poets and writers, artists, intellectuals, cultural people, gathered from all parts of Korea to celebrate Ko Un’s birthday. The place was decorated with many placards made with calligraphy and Ko Un’s photos.

The ceremony and celebration lasted for about 5 hours with 2 Parts, with several congratulatory speeches, songs traditional and modern, including their national beautiful pop song ‘Senoya Senoya’ set to Ko Un’s lyrics. (There are 3 songs set to Ko Un’s beautiful, simple and deep lyrics, ‘Senoya Senoya’, ‘Autumn Letter’, ‘A Little Boat’, all much loved by Korean people.), playing the traditional instruments, dances, with wonderful Korean food and drinks, all through the evening.

Ko Un made a brilliant, much -loved speech, this time concentrating on the ocean waves. At the end of the First Part with Ko Un’s speech, SangWha went up onto the platform, as nobody knew nor expected, to dedicate her secret book of love poems which she had secretly prepared with the publisher for months to Ko Un, an utter surprise, and it was received with great cheers and much pleasure by the participants. Ko Un was really surprised!

I also say Ko Un’s great grand epic of 1100-page ‘Cheong'(Song of Sim Cheong) last autumn, and 3 new poetry books will be out in the spring this year.

We left the home, for a wider world, visiting the temple with future giant Buddha, the Gyronggi Province Museum, and the Korean Folk Village, which celebrates its 50th anniversary. This certain village was the spot I visited almost 17 years ago. Inside, I recalled the studio I had its photos, while old houses reminded himself with the house he was born and raised in. It has been a full day, from noon to sunset but it summed up a whole life, with love and sincerity.

Related article: Korean poet Ko Un publishes his own Scripture

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Ashraf Aboul-Yazid is a renowned Egyptian poet, journalist, novelist, travelogue writer and translator. He is author of around three dozen books and Editor-in-Chief of Silk Road Literature Series.

The post The Poetic Gardens of Ko Un first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Ashraf Aboul-Yazid

Korean poet KO Un’s new monumental grand epic of 1,200-page long Cheong (Story of Sim Cheong), with the book design of cover page by himself, was published last November.

The book has been much lauded and celebrated by many poets and literary critics and intellectuals. One critic even confirms that ‘if the book is well translated into several other languages, then world literature will be greatly moved  and rocked by the appearance of it,’  and calls it a kind of ‘scripture.’

It is Ko Un’s version of Story of Sim Cheong, one of the two most popular and beloved Korean tales. Sim Cheong-jeon is a story about the titular Sim Cheong, who throws herself into the Indang Sea as a sacrifice so that her blind father can regain his eyesight. This selfless act of filial piety causes her to be resurrected and become an empress, and her father’s blindness is cured.

With the original story as the spine, Ko Un tires to intertwine the history of several kingdoms of Korea from the ancient, world history, history of the commons and of the lowest class people, history of the suffered women, anthropology, philosophy, Buddhism, etc, with such a beautiful rhythm and style, which eventually makes it a high, deep and vast, very complicated as well as beautiful architecture, as they say, leading to ‘scripture.’

Readers say that it is something marvelous that neither Korean literature nor world literature has ever seen and experienced, utterly unprecedented.

KO Un doesn’t like to have any public events for it, and actually he didn’t allow it to go to the media nor to the market (bookshop).

However, in honor of the publication of Cheong there have been several private celebration parties, small and big, gatherings of poets, philosophers, publishers, professors, intellectuals, artists and musicians. The book has been read widely among the poets and intellectuals.

From this spring season KO Un’s new poetry books will be out under the title of Poems of the World, 3 volumes each year, which will, hopefully!, continue for the next 10 years. What Ko Un wants to do with the poems is to write ‘an encyclopedia of poems’.

Last summer Last summer I celebrated Ko Un’s ninetieth birthday, and dedicated a poem for him published in a volume of world poet’s poems for the iconic poet. Ko Un keeps reading and writing, 7-9 hours every day, which is an amazing phenomenon at his age, and he is now preparing to work on a new big poetic project that he has had in mind for tens of years.

Ko Un and his wife Professor Sang Wha plan to travel in some countries this year, too. They haven’t decided what places to go, but there are always so many places to go as Ko Un sings in one of his poems:

Places I Want to Go

Thirty years ago

I had places I wanted to go.

I was everywhere on a map

Of a scale of 1,000,000: one.

Twenty years ago

I had places I really wanted to go.

The blue sky that kept returning to me through the bars of my cell window

was my road.

Thus far I have managed to plod here and there.

But I have set a few places aside.

After I have quit this world

The places I want to go

will keep on waiting for someone to come.

I had places I wanted to go.

When flowers fell,

When flowers fell in the evening,

I straightened up, closed my eyes.

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Ashraf Aboul-Yazid is an eminent poet, writer and journalist of Egypt. He is author of some three dozen books.

The post Korean poet Ko Un publishes his own Scripture first appeared on Sindh Courier.