Cheon Yanghui


Cheon Yanghui is a South Korean poet, best known for her poetry collection Sorghum Field of the Heart.

Life

Cheon Yanghui was born in Busan, Keishōnan Province, Korea, Empire of Japan on January 21, 1942 as the youngest of seven children. Throughout her childhood she was heavily influenced by her father, an enthusiast of poetry and pansori, and by her grandfather, a lay Buddhist. She often wrote and recited poems, despite being unable to participate in art festivals due to administrative issues at her school. In 1962 Cheon enrolled in Ewha Womans University, graduating with a degree in Korean literature.

Career

Cheon Yanghui's career followed an unusual trajectory in that she began publishing in her 20s, stopped for nearly two decades, then resumed publishing poetry in her 40s, to great critical acclaim. Her literary debut was in 1965, when the prestigious literary magazine Hyundae Munhak published three of her poems - "Once in a Garden", "Harmony", and "Morning" - thanks to a recommendation from Pak Dujin. After Cheon Yanghui married in 1969, she stopped writing and publishing poetry, although she eventually divorced her husband and became the manager of a dressmaker's shop. During this time she also suffered from tuberculosis and a heart condition. In 1983 Cheon returned to poetry by publishing the collection If God Asks Us.
While many of Cheon Yanghui's earlier works reflect on an isolated self, more of her later poems - beginning with her most well-known poetry collection Sorghum Field of the Heart - focus more on the everyday hardships, sorrows, and frustrations of living a more "typical" life. From her more mature perspective, Cheon was able to write eloquently about what insights she had learned over the past several decades of her life. More recent publications, such as Too Many Mouths, further elaborate on her perspective of what it means to write and publish poetry in modern society.
Cheon Yanghui has received the Sowol Poetry Prize, the Contemporary Literature (Hyundae Munhak) Award, Gong Cho Literature Award, Pak Dujin Literary Award, and Manhae Literature Prize.

Works

Poetry collections

If God Asks Us Sorghum Field of the Heart Old Alley Too Many Mouths

Essay collections

Into Jikso Fall Strolling in the Forest of Poetry When in Desperation, We Always Kneel Down I Am a Wind That Does Not Howl
  • ''Writing Class''

Works in translation

Awards