Ko Un

the poetry center
presents
Ko Un
Monday April 24
7:30 pm @ Unitarian Center
1187 Franklin (at Geary), $5
Presented in association with University of California Press

"When Ko Un sang 'Arirang' this fall at the Frankfurt Book Fair, at which Korea was the featured guest nation, his rendition was so poignant that it made the Germans in the audience noticeably uncomfortable. Ko Un was a nominee for the 2005 Nobel Prize in literature, and although he did not win, he has succeeded in bringing Korean literature into the international spotlights." --Heinz Insu Fenkl
Ko Un, the preeminent Korean poet of the twentieth century, embraces Buddhism with the versatility of a master Taoist sage.
A beloved cultural figure who has helped shape contemporary Korean literature, Ko Un is also a novelist, literary critic, ex-monk, former dissident, and four-time political prisoner.
His verse --vivid, unsettling, down-to-earth, and deeply moving-- ranges from the short lyric to the vast epic and draws from a poetic reservoir filled with memories and experiences ranging over seventy years of South Korea's tumultuous history from the Japanese occupation to the Korean war to democracy.
Allen Ginsberg has called Ko Un "a magnificent poet, a combination of Buddhist cognoscente, passionate political libertarian, and naturalist historian."
Gary Snyder exclaimed "a real-world poet!" who "outfoxes the Old Masters and the young poets both," and Lawrence Ferlinghetti has described Ko Un as "no doubt the greatest living Korean Zen poet today."
U.C. Press has just brought out The Three-Way Tavern: Selected Poems (translated by Clare You and Richard Silberg).
This collection, an essential sampling of his poems from the last decade of the twentieth century, offers in deft translation, as lively and demotic as the original, the off-beat humor, mystery, and mythic power of his work for a wide audience of English-speaking readers.
Other recent U.S. publications include Ten Thousand Lives (Green Integer), Little Pilgrim (Parallax Press) and Traveler Maps (Tamal Vista Publications). Forthcoming are Flowers of a Moment (Boa Editions), Songs for Tomorrow: Poems 1961-2002 (Green Integer) and South North (Tupelo).
COMING UP:
TUES April 18: Ann LAUTERBACH, a solo reading, 2:00 pm at Poetry Center
THUR April 20: Kate BRAVERMAN, a solo reading, 4:30 pm at Poetry Center
MON April 24: KO Un, Korea's great master poet, 7:30 pm at Unitarian Center
THUR April 27: Andrew JORON and Brian STRANG, 3:30 pm at Poetry Center
THUR April 27: 26, a reading by editors BURNS, MORRISON, NOBLE, ROBINSON, STRANG, 7:30 pm at Unitarian Center
MON May 15: Anne CARSON, a solo reading, 4:00 pm at Humanities Auditorium, HUM 133, SFSU
THUR May 18: Jaime DE ANGULO's Collected Poems, a celebration, w/ Stefan Hyner, editor, 4:30 pm at Poetry Center
SUN May 21: Driven by Desire, a reading for June JORDAN, 2:00 pm at SF Main Public Library
THUR May 25: Every Goodbye Ain't Gone, with Aldon NIELSEN, Lauri RAMEY, William J. HARRIS, giovanni SINGLETON, 6:00 pm at Café Royale
FRI May 26: Kelly HOLT and Ben MAZER, 6:00 pm at Café Royale
SUN June 11: Kees Kino, the filmwork of Weldon KEES, w/ Jenni OLSON, guest-curator, 7:30 pm at Yerba Buena Center
SUN June 18: Polis is This: Charles OLSON and the Persistence of Place, w/ Henry FERRINI, filmmaker, 7:30 pm at Yerba Buena Center--
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RECENT VISITORS: poets & publishing on the Bolinas scene in the seventies
Jan 30 (extended run) thru April 10, @ Book Club of California, 312 Sutter (at Grant)
Hours: Monday 10-7, Tues-Friday 10-5