Lauren Pippin

A Poem I've Written Easily

by Yun Dong-ju

A night rain whispers outside the window.
The floor of my room in a foreign land
is covered with six tatami mats.

To be a divinely destined poet is a solemn duty.
Let me try to jot down a poetical line.

The smell of my parents' sweat and affection
fills the envelope containing my tuition.

With a notebook under my arm
I head for an old professor's lecture.

I come to think of my childhood friends.
First one, then another, they're all gone.

What do I hope for as I sink alone?
Life is so hard,
and yet I've all too easily written a poem.
I feel so ashamed.

The floor of my room in a foreign land
is covered with six tatami mats.
A night rain whispers outside the window.

Turning the lamp on,
the darkness goes away.
I, as if a man on the last day,
await the morning
to break forth like a new age.

Offering myself my small hand,
I propose the first handshake─
in tears and comfort.

http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/klt/99spring/yundongju.htm

Image

https://www.maxpixel.net/Old-Statue-Sculpture-Culture-History-Atlas-2679778

This rock the man is holding is similar to the reference of Yun Dong-ju's statement of life being hard. The rock and life are connected because they both require effort to lift up.

Biography on Yun Dong-ju

Yun Dong-ju was a Korean poet born in 1917 in Longjing, Jilin, China. Throughout his entire life, Japan had colonial rule over Korea. Yun Dong-ju's poems related to their ruling and his feeling about it. In 1938, Yun Dong-ju entered that liberal arts department of Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. At this time, Japan was forcing the Korean people to be more loyal to Japan and only speak in Japanese. Despite Japan's ruling, Yun Dong-ju continued communicating with Korean scholars and writing poems. Most of his poems were about cultural identity during this rough, war-filled time period. After attending Yonsei University, he then went to Japan for more schooling. In 1943, Yun Dong-ju had been taken prisoner for protesting against the Japanese government. During his arrest, many of his poems were destroyed. Of the ones that survived was A Poem I've Written Easily, which was dated in 1942. He died in 1945 in Fukuoka Prison, Japan because of harsh treatment.

Analyzing A Poem I've Written Easily

IIn A Poem I've Written Easily, the speaker describes earning tuition from his parents' hard work whereas he has done nothing but write a poem in a foreign area while thinking of old memories. A light then comes on, giving the speaker hope in a dark time. The speaker of this poem is the author who is reflecting on his own life experiences of going to Japan to continue his education. He is in a foreign country, missing his family and friends, but he comforts himself and has hope that there will be a great change that comes to his home country. Yun Dong-ju used figurative language to push the overall story of his poem along. His personifies the wind, saying, "A night rain whispers outside the window," to show the silence during his loneliness. He compares the morning to a new age, believing he is getting over his problems with the coming of the next day. To conclude his story, the speaker shakes his own hand "in tears and comfort," showing he can bring himself out of hurt. While using figurative language, Yun Dong-ju formats the poem to have a very distinct shift after repeating the first stanza. Yun Dong-ju uses enjambment to show the flow of the story. (There are fewer punctuation marks in the non-translated version.) The tone of the poem changes from a feeling of heavy-heartedness and sorrow to a hopeful one. Before the shift, the speaker thinks of the difficulties of his life and longs for his friends and family. After finding light, the speaker finally has hope and waits for his future with courage. The theme of A Poem I've Written Easily is that there is always brightness that comes out in even the darkest of times.