Heo Su-gyeong

Heo Su-gyeong is a Korean poet^[1]

Life

Heo Su-gyeong was born in 1964 in Jinju, Gyeongsangnam-do.^[2] Heo after a brilliant literary debut at the age of twenty-three, left Korea abruptly after publishing just two volumes of poetry. She currently resides in Germany, pursuing a doctorate degree in Philology in the Department of Ancient Oriental Studies at Universität Münster.^[3]

Work

Heo infuses her poetry with the lyricism and the images taken from traditional Korean folktales and songs, thereby creating a uniquely Korean modern poetry free of western modernist influence. It can be said that distancing herself from her native tongue by living in a foreign environment is in itself the poet’s attempt to bring herself closer to the essence of the Korean language.^[4] In Heo's poems life is broken into pieces, filled with agony, incoherent, and loveless.^[5]

Works in Korean (Partial)

• There’s Not A Fodder Like Sorrow (Seulpeummanhan georeumi oedi iteurya, 1988)
• Alone To A Distant House (Honja ganeun meon jip, 1992)
• Though My Soul is Old (Nae yeonghoneun orae doieoteuna, 2001).

References