19-Year-Old Genius Poet Writes [Seungmu]

At Yongjusa(용주사) Temple, Gyeonggi Province, in 1938, a young man was immersed in a Buddhist ritual dance. The long sleeves of a Buddhist monk stretched out to form a white line in the air, silently or violently, as if expressing anguish of failed asceticism. The dance made the man stay at the temple till late at night. Just standing there, he was totally enraptured by the dance.

From that day on, the mysterious dance lingered in his mind and was finally reborn as a poem the following summer.

The white silk cowl folded gently wavers like a butterfly.
A bluish head, shaved close, veiled under the fine cowl,
The glow on her cheeks is so beautiful and even sorrowful.

Candlelight burns silently on an empty altar and the moon goes down to every paulownia leaf
Her long sleeves flow up against the vast sky and her shapely white socks turn up so slightly as if flying on the wing.

Raising her dark eyes softly, she gazes at a single star in the far-off sky,
Her peach blossom cheeks adorned with two tear drops
She may be harassed by worldly cares but suffering is the twinkle of a star.

Reading the poem first, readers may feel that an elegant Buddhist dance is flashing before their eyes as though they saw a video. While reciting the poem repeatedly, it feels like deep agony of a Buddhist monk is revealed through traditional rhythms and aesthetics of “seon” or meditation. Entitled [Seungmu], meaning “monk’s dance,” the poem was written by Jo Ji-hoon when he was 19 years old.

Walking the Path of a Poet from Childhood

Genius poet Jo Ji-hoon was born in Yeongyang(영양), North Gyeongsang Province on December 3rd, 1920. His birth name was Dong-tak(동탁). He learned Chinese classics from his grandfather Jo In-seok(조인석) and his father Jo Heon-young(조헌영) from childhood. He studied at Yeongyang Elementary School for three years and graduated from Hyehwa(혜화) Professional College, which is the predecessor of Dongguk University, in 1941 at the age of 21. He began writing pieces, including children’s songs, when he was nine years old. His family valued traditions highly, but Jo was able to experience Western culture as he read children’s stories such as [Peter Pan], [The Blue Bird] and [The Happy Prince], to which young boys found it difficult to access at the time.

Jo organized a literary society called the ‘Flower Tower’ in 1931 together with his older brother Jo Se-rim(조세림) and published a collection of literary works with the same title. Around 1934, Jo started writing poems.

After moving to Seoul in 1936, Jo entered the world of poetry with his early poems [Spring Day] and [The Body Floating on the Water]. In April 1939, Jo made his debut as a poet as the literary magazine [Sentence] recommended his poem [Antique Dress], which describes a traditional Korean woman.

Poetry Harmonized with Classic Beauty and Indigenous Language

In November of the same year, Jo published [Seungmu]. He also published another famous poem [Phoenix’ Anxiety] in 1940 to sing about Korean traditional culture in an elegant and delicate way. His poems breathed warmth on the Korean language, which was in an extremely precarious state in the 1940s when imperial Japan prohibited the use of Korean to destroy Koreans’ national spirit.

Jo was devoted to the studies of his mother tongue while compiling a dictionary of the Korean Language Society in 1942. Unfortunately, Japan suppressed and arrested Korean language scholars, including Jo, that year. After suffering hardships, he returned to his hometown. At the time, he encountered poet Park Mok-wol and formed an intimate friendship with him. In 1946, he published a joint collection of lyric poetry, [Cheongrok-jip] (청록집), together with two other poets, Park Mok-wol and Park Du-jin.

A Poet of Fidelity

Jo later published other collections of poems and participated in the project of compiling the nation’s first textbooks of the Korean language and Korean history as the member of the Korean Language Society. He also taught students at Korea(고려) University and actively engaged in activities related to Korean history and society.

He released a famous editorial [Discourse on Fidelity] to sharply criticize the pro-Japanese collaborators who showed no signs of regret but still engaged in full-time politics in the extremely corrupt political world in the late period of the Liberty Party. The scathing editorial also targeted the leadership of society who habitually abandoned their principles. Jo also resisted dictatorship. He died on May 17th, 1968, ending his 48-year life as an unyielding poet and scholar.

His life was short, but he was a conspicuous figure in the literary world during his lifetime. After death, he is dubbed “the poet of the nation, with his gemlike poems enjoyed by the public and shining brightly in Korean literature.