Mun Jeonghui is a South Korean poet.

Life

Mun Jeonghui was born in

Boseong Boseong County (''Boseong-gun'') is a county in South Jeolla Province, South Korea. Boseong is famous for its green tea leaves, with 26.71 hectares of land dedicated to its production. It is also the birthplace of the Korean independence activ ...

Jeollanam-do South Jeolla Province (; ''Jeollanam-do''; ), also known as Jeonnam, is a province of South Korea. South Jeolla has a population of 1,902,324 (2014) and has a geographic area of located in the Honam region at the southwestern tip of the Korean ...

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

on May 25, 1947. She attended Jinmyeong Girls' High School, majored in

Korean Literature Korean literature is the body of literature produced by Koreans, mostly in the Korean language and sometimes in Classical Chinese. For much of Korea's 1,500 years of literary history, it was written in Hanja. It is commonly divided into classica ...

Dongguk University Dongguk University (Korean: 동국대학교, Hanja: 東國大學校) is a private, coeducational university in South Korea, fundamentally based on Buddhism. Established in 1906 as Myeongjin School (명진학교; 明進學校) by Buddhist pioneers ...

, and completed her graduate studies from the same university, where she has also taught. While still in high school, she published her first collection of poems, ''Kkotsum'' (1965). In 1969 Mun Jeonghui made her debut in literature when her poems "Bulmyeon" (''Insomnia'') and "Haneul" (''Sky'') were accepted in ''Wolgan Munhaks feature on new poets. In 2014, she served as the chairman of the

Society of Korean Poets The Society of Korean Poets () is a literary organization established in 1957. It is the oldest active poetry organization in South Korea. Every year, the organization awards the Society of Korean Poets Award, and holds the National High School ...

Work

The core of Mun Jeonghui's poetry reveals a distinctly romantic consciousness, expressed in crystalline language, dominated by a complex interplay of vivid emotions and sensations. Her fine, occasionally startling poetic sensibility is best represented in the poem ''Hwangjiniui norae'':

No, that isn't it. Even with little sunlight / with love alone / that is shy of new faces / like flowers of grass / I want to knock my whole body against a massive wall / and fall.

Mun's similes and metaphors are entirely subjective, having been internalized to chart the evolutions and dramas of her own emotions. Her figurative language becomes a register of her sensitivity, and movingly treats the themes of romantic love, reticence, suffering, and freedom. In a few poems such as ''Potatoes'' (Gamja), ''Saranghaneun samacheon dangsinege'' and ''Namhangangeul barabomyeo'', Mun Jeonghui makes use of the elements of fairy tale narratives in order to arrive at an allegorical distillation of present reality."문정희" LTI Korea Datasheet available at LTI Korea library or online at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#

Works in translation

* Windflower (문정희 시선) * Woman on the Terrace (양귀비꽃 머리에 꽂고) * Die Mohnblume im Haar (문정희 시선-어린 사랑에게) * Celle qui mangeait le riz froid (édition Bruno Doucey, 2012), trans. Kim Hyun-ja

Works in Korean (partial)

* Kkotsum (1965) * Mun Jeonghui Sijip (1973) * Honja muneojineun jongsori (1984) * Aunaeui sae (1986), Geuriun naui jip (1987) * Je momsoge salgo inneun saereul kkeonaeeo juseyo (1990)

Awards

Contemporary Literature (Hyundae Munhak) Award The company Contemporary Literature (“Hyundae Munhak” in Korean), founded in South Korea in 1954, is one of the leading publishing companies in the literary field and has been publishing the nation's most prestigious monthly literary magazine ' ...

(1975) *

Sowol Poetry Prize The Sowol Poetry Prize () is one of the most prestigious literary awards in South Korea. Established by the publishing company Moonhaksasangsa () in 1986, the prize aims to commemorate the soul of the poetry of Kim Sowol Kim Sowol ( ko, 김소� ...

(1996) *

Jeong Jiyong Literature Prize Jeong Jiyong Literature Prize (Hangul: 정지용문학상) is a literary award established in 1989 for poet and poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic ...

(2004)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mun, Jeonghui 1947 births Living people Dongguk University alumni South Korean women poets Jeong Jiyong Literature Prize winners International Writing Program alumni People from Boseong County