Dawn of labor, dawn of life

It must have been around 30 years ago that I first heard of Park Nohae. The name sounded quite unfamiliar. I have heard of his poem "Dawn of Labor," but I could not read it. I remember one line from one of his poems that ‘Today father is being noisy, naughty again too." I was very much struck by it, because he was a man but could grasp the invisible oppression of one by another, namely, a father’s oppression of a mother. The poet must have been a very sensitive and empathizing person. Later, I heard the news that he was imprisoned under the military dictatorship in 1990s. Then I forgot about him. He was cut out of this mercantile world and put into a deserted, solitary prison cell. I never expected to see him again. But about 30 years later, I happened to. One of my friends told me to go to see the exhibition of his photographs held in downtown Seoul. I went to the gallery, which was so clean and cozy with humble decorations of dried flowers and branches. I slowly looked around his photos exhibited on the white wall. Every photo not taken by a smartphone was in black and white. A phWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times