"Just because we are poor, do we not know love? / The warmth of your lips touching my cheek / … Just because we are poor, why would we not know? / That because we are poor, we must give up these things / All of these things."
Shin Kyong-rim, the poet behind "A Poor Love Song," movingly sang of the weary lives and human dignity of the urban poor. The final prose works of the poet, who left major pieces of Korean modern poetry such as "Reeds" and "Farmers' Dance," have been published. The posthumous collection captures the fierce contemplation of a poet who spent his life pondering the relationship among people, reality, and literature. The volume was edited by poet Do Jong-hwan, with whom Shin shared a particularly close mentor-protégé bond.
The book's title is drawn from a line in "Mokgye Marketplace," one of his representative works. The phrase symbolically illustrates the life of a poet who sought to descend to the place of wildflowers and small stones rather than that of great boulders. Shin's literature has long gazed upon the lives and voices of the lowly rather than ornate rhetoric. While bringing the realities of ordinary people such as workers, farmers, and the urban poor into his poetry, he embraced the sorrow and compassion within the human heart rather than mere political slogans.
The book is largely organized into three parts. Part 1 examines the role Korean poetry has played within the currents of modern history, from liberation and war through military dictatorship and the democracy movement. While highly valuing the significance of engaged poetry running from Shin Dong-yup to Kim Soo-young to Kim Chi-ha, it also views the lyricism and modernism of Kim Chun-su and Kim Jong-sam as important achievements of Korean literature. "Poetry without self-reflection cannot move people, no matter how right its words may be," is the poet's longstanding belief.
In Part 2, he unfolds his own literary journey. Through changes that ran from pure lyricism to realism and back to the rhythms of the people, he constantly doubted his own language. The poet recalls this as "a repeated act of fleeing from my own poems." He emphasizes, "Poetry must be discovery. The role of poetry is to share with others what only I have seen, found, and touched," adding that "it must always be a journey of the soul in search of something new."
Part 3 carries warm insights into nature, daily life, and society. Looking out at the Namhan River, he says the river is not something that divides people but a current that connects them to one another. This perspective remains unchanged when he speaks of education, the environment, and reunification.
Do Jong-hwan, who edited the book, says, "The path Shin walked in anguish is the very path Korean literature has walked." The final voice of the poet, who did not hide even his own shortcomings and shame, comes as a lasting comfort in an age of anxiety and loss. 17,000 won.
