Jeong Ji-Yong

Jeong Ji-Yong Poems

Jeong Ji-Yong Biography

Jeong Ji-yong, often romanized in literature as Cheong Chi-yong (정지용) (1902–??) was a Korean poet and translator of English poetry who "opened a new horizon of poetic possibilities through chiselled expression, tempered sentiments, and precise visual imagery" according to the scholar of Korean poetry, Brother Anthony. Cheong Chi-yong was born in Okcheon, Chungcheongbuk-do, on May 15, 1902. He attended Whimoon High School and graduated from Japan's Toshishya University with a major in English Literature. While studying at Whimoon High School, he published the literary magazine Bulletin (Yoram) with contemporaries like Park Palyang. In 1926 he began concentrate exclusively on composing poetry and his piece “Cafe France” (Kape peurangseu) was published in Hakjo magazine. Later in life, Jung was active as an associate of Poetry (Simunhak) magazine, and taught at Whimoon High School. After Liberation, he taught at Ewha Womans University, edited the Kyunghyang Daily News, and was a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Korean Writers Federation (Joseon Munhakga dongmaeng). In 1950, at the onset of the Korean War, he was detained by the Government Preservation Department, and then transferred to Pyongyang Prison, where he is believed to have died.)

The Best Poem Of Jeong Ji-Yong

Nostalgia

The place where a rill, babbling old tales,
Meanders on eastward toward the end
of a broad plain
And a mottled bull ox lows
In dusk's plaintive tones
of golden indolence-

Could it ever be forgotten, even in one's dreams?

The place where ashes grow cold in a clay brazier
While over empty fields the sound of the night wind
drives the horses
And our aged father, overcome with drowsiness,
Props his straw pillow-

Could it ever be forgotten, even in one's dreams?

The place where I got drenched
in the rank weeds' dew,
Searching for an arrow recklessly shot
In the yearning of my earth-bred heart
For the sky's lustrous blue-

Could it ever be forgotten, even in one's dreams?

The place where little sister, dark earlocks
Flying like night waves dancing in a fairy-tale sea,
And my wife, not pretty but passable
and all the year barefoot,
Bent their backs to the sun's tingling rays and
gleaned ears of grain-

Could it ever be forgotten, even in one's dreams?
The place where sprinkled stars
wend their way in the sky
Toward sand castles just beyond our ken,
While beneath drab roofs,
hoary crows cawing past,
People sit, softly murmuring,
round the faint firelight-

Could it ever be forgotten, even in one's dreams?

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