Park Hyungjun

Park Hyungjun was born in 1966 in Jeongeup, North Jeolla Province.[1] He graduated from the Seoul Institute of the Arts in creative writing, and then he received a master's degree and a doctorate degree in creative writing from Myongji University’s graduate school. During his early years, he came up from the country side and lived in Incheon, a city unfamiliar to him. His experiences in the city during these years led him to write poetry. He has confessed as following. “So when I was living in Incheon, I felt often as if I was stagnant even though I was endlessly drifting. But I think that was what drove me to write poetry.”[2] At Seoul Institute of the Arts, he was a pupil of poets Oh Kyu Won and Choe Ha-rim. Afterwards, he began his literary career when in 1991 his poem Gagu-ui him (가구의 힘 The Strength of Furniture) won the Korea Times New Writer's Award. He was awarded the first Dream and Poetry Literary Award in 1996, the 15th Dongsuh Literary Award in 2002, the 10th Contemporary Poetics Award in 2005, the 24th Sowol Poetry Award Grand Prize in 2009, the 9th Yuksa Poetry Award in 2012. In 2014 he became a professor in creative writing at Dongguk University.

Park Hyungjun has been described as a "poet who is reinterpreting the tradition of Korean lyric poetry in the most modern way." In the commentary on his 24th Sowol Poetry Award Grand Prize in 2009, he is credited as being "worthy of high praise for his poetic achievement through his combination of intellect and emotion, tension between language and rhythm, and balance between sense and lyricism".

His first poetry collection is Naneun ije somyeol-e daehaeseo iyagiharyeonda (나는 이제 소멸에 대해서 이야기하련다 I Would Now Like to Talk About Disappearance). In this work, the poet records the times that bear traces of the past and life's scars.[3] He delves into the moment of disappearance where the past, present and the future of a world comes together. Park's poetry collection Bultan jib (불탄 집 The Burnt House) took a step further from replaying the memory of disappearance to holding the hands of those struggling and the hurt lives in the world, thereby expanding the spectrum of his poetry.

• 1996 1st Dream and Poetry Literary Award
• 2002 15th Dongsuh Literary Award
• 2005 10th Contemporary Poetics Award
• 2009 24th Sowol Poetry Award Grand Prize
• 2012 9th Yuksa Poetry Award

• Yu, Seongho, “The Aesthetics of Young Poets That Fight Against the Separation of Host and Guest”, The Quarterly Changbi, Summer 2000.
• Kim, Sui, “The Perspective of Time and its Residue”, The Quarterly Changbi, Summer 2002.
• Kang, Gyesuk, “The Power of Memory: On Park Hyungjun”, The Quarterly Changbi, Spring 2004.
• Hong, Yonghui, “The Variation of Disappearance and Urgency, or the Wedding of Death”, Writer’s World, Winter 2005.
• Son, Taek-su, “Poetry At Sunset”, Literature and Practice, Summer 2005.
• Kim, An, “A Stemless Flower That Blossoms Between the Advanced and the Primitive”, Cheonnyeonui sijak, Spring 2011.

• Poet Park Hyungjun, ‘How Does Sadness Become Strength’
• Poet Park Hyungjun, Kim Huyeong’s Interviews With Poets – The View From the Window