Full Moon

This collection of poems gives concreteness and universality of life to contemporary Korean poetry, especially that which has been unable to escape from the morass of the idealism of the 1950s and 60s. This anthology, acclaimed as a rigorous control of the sentimentality, uses vivid language to embody his sincere and acute insights into social reality. With the archetype of beautiful childhood memories in rural communities, where humankind is not alienated from nature, the collection describes the wretched life of peasants driven to the city by industrialization. The desperateness of reality in great harmony with a highly sophisticated poetic technique vividly captures the aspect of the time. While articulating that the very personal story of the poet is quite relevant to numerous others who have lived the same life in the same period, the poems delicately depict uncompromising resistance to secularism and dehumanization.