[close] This selection of poems by Ko Un, Korea's leading writer, offers unique insights into how a great poet responds to the violence, war, and oppression that have ravaged Korea in this century. His first poems were written when Ko Un was a Buddhist monk. Later, he returned to a society where nihilism and doubt seemed compelling choices; in the 1970s and 80s he participated actively in many dissident movements, for which he was often arrested. In recent years, now married and a father, he has found new poetic forms to express his evolving vision. For this volume, poems from every period of Ko Un's remarkable career have been selected and translated by BROTHER ANTHONY with YOUNG-MOO KIM. [close]