Minang so chong ju biography samples

Published in The Korea Times June 6, 2001

             Faithful readers of the Korea Times will perhaps not have noticed that the Korean-language press has for the last few weeks been giving prominent space to opinion articles denouncing the well-known dissident poet Ko Un for having dared to criticize his “Master” the senior poet So Chong-Ju who died at the end of December last year.

The thought of major national newspapers in the United States or Britain giving considerable space to quarrels about poetry is almost laughable, so it may be good to spend a moment reflecting on why such a thing happens in Korea.

What is all this fuss about?

             First, the poets: So Chong-Ju was born in Kochang, North Cholla Province, in 1915 and began to publish poems in the later 1930s.

His first collec