The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry - by David McCann (Paperback)

About the Book

The only up-to-date representative gathering of Korean poetry from the twentieth century in English, this volume presents 228 poems by 34 modern Korean poets, including renowned poets such as So Chongju and Kim Chiha.

Book Synopsis

Korea's modern poetry is filled with many different voices and styles, subjects and views, moves and countermoves, yet it still remains relatively unknown outside of Korea itself. This is in part because the Korean language, a rich medium for poetry, has been ranked among the most difficult for English speakers to learn. The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry is the only up-to-date representative gathering of Korean poetry from the twentieth century in English, far more generous in its selection and material than previous anthologies. It presents 228 poems by 34 modern Korean poets, including renowned poets such as So Chongju and Kim Chiha.

Review Quotes

McCann's fascinating tour... illuminat[es] the course of Korean poetry and the struggle of their modernization as a people.--Sun Yung Shin "Rain Taxi"

This anthology fills the last major hole for readers of East Asian literatures. His introduction and informative briefs on each poet are excellent...Essential.--T. Carolan "Choice"

With in such a time frame, we are very grateful to have more than a "taste".--Bonnie R. Crown "World Literature Today"

Readers are going to be surprised, I think, by the richness and intensity and range of The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry Though many U.S. soldiers lost their lives in the Korean War, and though our fates are profoundly intertwined with that of the Korean people, most Americans have not really taken in the history of that beautiful and riven country: the decades of a brutal Japanese occupation in the first half of the century, during which many aspects of Korean culture were suppressed, the years of WW II, the extraordinary violence and devastation of the Korean Civil War as it turned into a Cold War battlefield, the post-war struggle of the people of the south against their dictators, the explosive economic growth, the isolation of and continued tension with the North. Throughout these years, people lived lives, wrote poems, whoe literary movements, avant-gardes, people's poetries, folk poetries, underground and oppositional poetries, Buddhist and Christian poetries, appeared and disappeared, and some remarkable poets made poems from their century's violent requiem. Perhaps no American scholar other than David McCann could have found a way to tell the whole story in the way that this book does.--Robert Hass

About the Author

David McCann is Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Literature at Harvard University. His many books include Early Korean Literature: Selections and Introductions; War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War; and translations of poetry by So Chongju, Kim Chiha, and other poets. He lives in Watertown, Masachusetts.