Fall Brings to Mind the Poet Yun Dong-ju

There is a poem often recited by Koreans when autumn’s falling temperatures begin to chill the air.

Autumn fills the sky of passing seasons.
I feel as if I could count, without any worry, all the stars of the autumn.
A memory to a star,
A love to a star,
A loneliness to a star,
An admiration to a star,
A poem to a star,
And mother, mother to a star.
Mother, I call out each of these beautiful words to a star.

Titled, “A Night of Counting Stars,” this poem prompts us to call out the names of our beloved ones one-by-one. When we read the poems of Yun Dong-ju, a poet who left this world much too early at age 29, we can’t help but miss him. Thankfully, however, he left us with many poems that continue to resonate in the souls of Korean people.

Born on December 30, 1917 in Manchuria, poetry came naturally to Yun. He published a literary journal, Sae-Myeongdong (The New Myeongdong) at age 13 to showcase his poems and children’s songs. In 1936 and 1937 he published “Byeong’ari,” (A Chick) “Bitjaru” (A Broom),” and “What Am I Going to Do for a Living?” while in Manchuria.

So strong was Yun’s desire to write poetry that he went on a hunger strike and even ran away from home when his father objected to him becoming a professional poet. Nevertheless, his career in poetry was launched in earnest when he entered the literature department of Yeonhi College (present-day Yonsei University). The poem “A Night of Counting Stars,” which portrays Yun’s homesickness, was written in 1941 while he attended Yeonhi College. Sadly, his college years were dominated by regret and pain.

Yun lived during Japan’s colonial reign over Korea. It was considered seditious to write about Korea and reminiscences about a girl who refused to change her Korean name to a Japanese one. While living during this dark time, Yun wrote the self-reflective poem, “Self Portrait,” and “Prologue,” the author’s resolution to live his life without shame.

Yun’s life was filled with anguish and soul-searching, inevitable byproducts of the gloomy epoch in Korean history. Nevertheless, he tried to embrace the darkness with the light of his soul, which resulted in a collection of uplifting poems.

He readied a collection of 18 poems written during his student days at Yeonhi College titled, “Sky, Wind, Star, and Poem” for publication in 1941, the year of his graduation. Unfortunately, that never came. Instead, he went to Japan to continue his studies at the English literature department at Tokyo’s Rikkyo University.

Tears Flow in Yun’s Poems

Yun’s days at Rikkyo University were cut short when a feverish nationalism swept the island nation. After just one semester, he was forced to transfer to the English literature department at Dojisha University. Unfortunately, his stay there also ended prematurely.

In July 1943, Yun was arrested by Japanese police for engaging in anti-Japanese activities with other Korean students living in Japan. He was sentenced to two years in Fukuoka Prison. There, he was tortured mercilessly, starved and subjected to mysterious injections until he died. His sensitive and beautiful soul left the earth on February 16, 1945, just months before Korea’s liberation from Japan.

In the years following his death, Yun’s poems were not immediately released to the public. It was only after Yun’s friend, Kang Cheo-jung, who previously worked as reporter for the Gyeonghyang Newspaper, showed his poems to then-editor-in-chief, Jeong Ji-yong, that Yun’s, “An Easily-Written Poem,” was published in February 1947.

In the following year, Yun’s collection, Sky, Wind, Star, and Poem finally made it to the mass market. To this day, countless people say they are moved by Yun’s poetry the more they read it. Perhaps that’s why Yun’s works are many Koreans’ favorite poems to recite and still shine brightly in our hearts like the stars high in the autumn night sky.