Song Jaehak

Song Jaehak is a South Korean poet and dentist.

Biography

Song Jaehak was born in Yeongcheon, South Korea in 1955. He studied dentistry at Kyungpook National University and currently works as a dentist in Daegu. He began writing in his teens when he joined a literary club at his middle school and high school. He continued to write and debuted as a poet when the journal World Literature published his poem Eodueun naljjareul seucheoseo in 1986. Song's poetry was noted for its emphasis on thought over sentiment. It combined clinical observations of objects and the world with the subjectivity of imagination. He published his first poetry collection Eoreum sijip in 1988, followed by Pureunbitgwa ssauda in 1994, Geuga nae ulgureul manjine in 1997, Gieokdeul in 2001, Jinheukeolgul in 2005, Naeganchereul eotda in 2011, Naljjadeul in 2013, and Geomeunsaek in 2015. He is the winner of several accolades, including the Kim Daljin Literature Prize, Pyeon-un Literature Award, and Jeon Bonggeon Literary Award.

Writing

Song's poetry is known for appealing to the senses, especially by use of imagery and color. Eoreum sijip describes the anguish of worldly relationships and the process of overcoming it. His subsequent poems are a continuation of that theme and explore the essence of life in a measured tone. Following his third poetry collection Geuga nae ulgureul manjine, which offers a unique interpretation of color and a sympathetic portrayal of everyday life, Song begins to use more compact language to express his thoughts and intuitions. The judges of the Yi Sang Poetry Award note that Song makes effective use of "synesthesia triggered by visual cues" and that "his symbols are not rhetoric but shed light on truth," which is why his poetry can be said to "transcend the contradictions of Western modernism." In addition, literary critic Lee Gwang-ho observes that Song's poetry brings together bodily senses with the beauty of landscapes, describing him as "a poet who finds passages of the body in images." In his 2015 poetry collection, Geomeunsaek, Song probes the nature of the world through the color black, which he uses to represent death.

Works

Poetry collections

『얼음시집』
『살레시오네 집』
『푸른빛과 싸우다』
『그가 내 얼굴을 만지네』
『기억들』
『진흙얼굴』
『내간체를 얻다』
『날짜들』
『검은색』

Essay collections

『풍경의 비밀』
『삶과 꿈의 길, 실크로드』

Works in Translation

Source:

Awards

1994: 5th Kim Daljin Literature Prize
2010: 25th Sowol Poetry Award
2011: 25th Geumbok Culture Award
2012: 5th Yi Sang Poetry Award
2014: 24th Pyeon-un Literature Award
2016: 2nd Jeon Bonggeon Literary Award.