Poetry. Asian Studies. Translated from the Korean by Clare You and Richard Silberg. "Ko Un's poems evoke the open creativity and fluidity of nature, and funny turns and twists of mind. Mind is sometimes registered in Buddhist terms—Buddhist practice being part of Ko Un's background. Ko Un writes spare, short-line lyrics direct to the point, but often intricate in both wit and meaning. Ko Un has now traveled worldwide and is not only a major spokesman for all Korean culture, but a voice for Planet Earth Watershed as well."—Gary Snyder
Author City: Anseong KOR
Born in 1933 in a small rural village in Korea's North Cholla Province, Ko Un grew up in a Japanese-controlled land that was soon to experience the horrors of the Korean War. He became a Buddhist monk in 1952, and began writing in the late 1950s.
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