Career
He held a professorship at Hongik University and Hanyang University (at which a statue has been erected in his honor at the beginning in 1961) Park was elected to the Korean Academy of Arts (Yesurwon) in 1965 and was chosen as chairman of the Korean Poets Association in 1968. 강나루 건너서
밀밭길을
Across the ferry
by the path through the corn
구름에 달 가듯이
가는 나그네
like the moon through the clouds
the wayfarer goes. 길은 외줄기
남도삼백리
The road stretches south
three hundred li
술 익는 마을마다
타는 저녁놀
every wine-mellowing village
afire in the evening light
구름에 달 가듯이
가는 나그네
as the wayfarer goes
like the moon through the clouds.
After his experience in the harrowing Korean War, Park’s work shifted in style.
Now he strove to incorporate the pain, death, and even monotony of daily existence into his poetry without maintaining a standard of sentimental and lyrical quality. His later poems, however, represent a return to the use of vivid colloquial language as the medium through which to express the color and vitality of local culture.
His collection of poems from this later stylistic phase, Fallen Leaves in Gyeongsang-do(Gyeongsang-doui garangnip) provides the artistic forum through which he is able to further explore his earlier questions of the relationship between light and dark, happiness and despair, and life and death. Park’s poetry, especially his later work, reveals a fervent love for life that does not wane despite his diligent acknowledgment of the ever-present threat of the education
He is celebrated for the cautious optimism of his work and his ability to subtly internalize conflicts of empiric reality in his deceptively localized and dialectal poetry.
