time

Poet's Note 4

Wildflowers·1 14
Wildflowers 2 15
Wildflowers·3 16
Gift 17
Beautiful People 18
Happiness 19
Request 20
Empty from afar 21
Poem 1 22
Poem 2 23
Ecstasy 24
Flowering Phone 25
Become a flower, become a bird 26
Poppy 27
How to Live 28
29 this fall
Walk 30
31 on the island
Zen Buddhism 32
Life 33
Blink 34
Ecstasy 35
Love is always awkward 37
Dazzling Flesh 38
39 since that day
40 pencils
Please don't do that 41
Crying spot 42
Hope 43
Time 44
Faraway Place 45
Looking back 47
Good medicine 48
Like a dog 49
50 Courtesies for Trees
Summer Days 51
Wife·2 52
Completed 53
Wife·1 54
Seoul, Hyena 55
The River and I 56
Bus 58 from the sea
60 pebbles
61 Between Smiles
Days on Earth 63
Living 64
West of the Sky 67
Day 68, when you can see far away
Foggy Field 70
Evening Scenery 71
Greetings 72
Joy 73
Uninhabited Island 74
Poet School 75
Violet 76
Lyricist 77
Glass window 78
Petal 79
80 in the middle of the night
Huh? 81
82 to my daughter
Ask the Wind 83
Era 84
Chok 86
You're Far Away Again Today 87
Beautiful Beast 88
Separation 90
Love 91
Iris 92
Handshake 94
White Christmas 96
Flowering Tree 98
Back view 100
Return 102
Today's Promise 103
Dazzling World 105
maternal grandmother 106
108 Under the Bamboo Grove
The sound of the wind in the bamboo forest, heard over the back 110
The skirt my mother is wearing is 112
114 at the well
Winter White Clouds 115
116 on the road
March Bird 117
119 on a spring day
Crescent 121
Song of the Empty Hands 123
Wandering 127
Stone steps 130
Wild Chrysanthemum 132
Prayer 134
Under the tree in the forest 136
Autumn Letter 1 138
Autumn Letter 2 140
Back to the mountain 142
144 Into the Forest of Fallen Oak Leaves
Bombada 145
Moonlit Night 147
Mekkot 149
Walking along the field 151
Silk River 153
Cornelian cherry blossoms 154
Name calling 155
Even though I have a loving heart, 156
The Woman of My Dreams 158
A Sad Spring Day 160
My Beloved Season 163

epilogue
Lee Soong-won, the Creator Next to God 166

'If you look closely, it's pretty // If you look for a long time, it's lovely // You too.' It's a short poem of only twenty-four characters.
But this poem entered the hearts of readers and became a flower, a handshake, and a spring.
It is truly an honor.
This poetry collection, “Grass Flowers,” is a collection of selected poems created to commemorate and celebrate the success of the poem “Grass Flowers.”
---From Na Tae-ju [Poet's Note]

The most beloved signboard at Kyobo Bookstore in Gwanghwamun for 25 years is… Poet Na Tae-ju’s poem “Wildflowers” ​​ranked first: “You have to look closely to see it’s pretty/ You have to look for a long time to see it’s lovely/ You too.”
This is the most beloved poem among citizens on the 'Gwanghwamun Signboard' that has decorated the exterior wall of Kyobo Life Insurance headquarters in Gwanghwamun, Seoul for 25 years.
Kyobo Life Insurance announced on the 14th that the results of an online vote conducted for a month starting on the 4th of last month on the topic, “Which Gwanghwamun sign touches my heart?”, showed that the verse from poet Na Tae-joo’s poem “Wild Flowers” ​​that was hung in the spring of 2012 received the most support.
In a survey where 2,300 people participated and chose three of 69 candidate poems, poet Na Tae-ju's "Wild Flowers" received 1,493 votes.
One participant who voted for poet Na Tae-joo's "Wildflowers" said, "After secretly submitting my resignation to the company I had worked for for eight years without telling my family, I had a hard time. Then, I saw the sign on the bus passing Gwanghwamun and cried a lot thinking about my family waiting for me." He continued, "When there was no one to listen to me, the Gwanghwamun sign gave me the strength to get back on my feet."
_《Kyunghyang Shinmun》, Park Jae-hyun (Reporter) 2015.10.14.


You have to look closely to see it's pretty // You have to look at it for a long time to see it's lovely // You too.
----[Flower] Specialty

Passing by/ an alleyway// thick and hard/ asphalt calluses/ and seeing the tip of a sprout/ rising/ Oh, how delicate/ and soft it is! // At the tip of a single tip/ lies the power to lift the earth.
----[Prompt] Professional

They don't think about buying other people's loneliness/ They only ask to buy their own loneliness/ Everyone is a peddler of loneliness.
----[Poet School] Specialization

Like a child left alone to watch the house when all the other children go to the circus/ Like an old painter who turns around and looks at a magpie's nest/ Like a country pastor who has been ostracized by his followers.
----[Lyricist] Full text

A long time ago, at a drinking party, he told me that his wife had lost her uterus.
He asked me how I treat my wife.
After school, they would walk hand in hand along the flower path around the principal's residence, talk a lot, and at night, they would always hug each other and go to sleep.
I was taken aback by his unexpected words, which seemed far from sexual sensuality.
When I asked if that was true, he said he loved his wife even more because he felt sorry for her after she lost her uterus.
He doesn't know how to lie, so it must be true.
He went to the afterlife and came back, leaving behind such a wife.
He wrote a poem contemplating his own death.
Having overcome a near-death experience, you have become a master of life.
“The Place Where I Cried” is a poem written while recalling the place where his family was lost in grief while he was in the intensive care unit.
Recalling their despair, he said, “For many days they must have been three turtledoves, unable to fly in the rain.”
The phrase “mountain dove” strikes my heart.
The poet's compassion, which worries more about the pain and sorrow his family will experience than his own death, is heartwarming.
How about "good medicine"? While the poet was lying in the intensive care unit, his father, limping and using a cane, came to visit.
It is said that the words of his father, “The world is still a wonderful place,” became good medicine and helped him survive.
Here too, we can glimpse his clear gaze and the strength of his heart that affirms everything in the world.
If you think the world is a wonderful place, you will survive even on the threshold of the afterlife.
From that day on, his poetry sings more about the happiness of everyday life and more vividly about the joy of existing in this wonderful world.
The poems are truly beautiful, sometimes sublime, and mostly noble.
And it's all fun.
It lets you fully experience the joy of living in a world that is so good it makes you want to jingle.
"After That Day" tells the story of a poet who, after being discharged from the hospital and retiring from work, has become smaller in body and mind and follows his wife around like a child, enjoying the company of her.
Where else can you get the happiness of being full just by eating a bowl of 2,500 won noodles?
The ballpoint pen is cute and lovely.
For the 625 generation, who have become accustomed to frugality, the pencil that is attached to the tip of a ballpoint pen makes them think about many things.
He said that when he was working at an elementary school, he had a pencil case full of pencils.
The poet says he wishes his wife would see him as a crowbar.
Poet Na Tae-ju, who is ten years older than me.
Will I be able to look like a pencil sharpener in ten years? I'm too young to even gaze intently at a single wildflower, so I doubt it will be possible.
He even said in "Like a Dog" that he wanted to look "like a dog" to his wife.
The reason why things taste good is because of the habit of going to a corner and eating.
Will I be eating like a dog in ten years? I don't think so.
In "Completion," the wife and the poet, who each lived as halves of a different being, said that they had to unite to become a complete being.
It is a great discovery that a couple becomes complete only when they become their own halves.
I intend to engrave the neat and tranquil poem "Completion" on a frame and make it a model for life and a touchstone for happiness.
Even if there is food at home, I am/ a person who does not eat if my wife is not present // If I do not bring her, my wife/ is a person who cannot even go to her daughter's house in Seoul // As we live together like this, / my other half has become complete as a human being. --- Excerpt from "Completion" Poet Na Tae-joo, who is deeply considerate of others, understands the existence of poets more deeply than anyone else.
The two works are “Poet’s School” and “Lyric Poet.”
I've seen countless poems about poets, but I've never seen a work that expresses the poet so concisely.
A poet has many dreams, is greedy, and is therefore self-centered, and can be as innocent as a child.
Because he has such a pure childlike vision, the poet can discover the secret beauty of nature.
We only see one side of the poet, but he grasped the whole picture of the poet and even the limitations of the poet's daily life, and expressed them condensed into short poems.
It's truly amazing.
We always feel unhappy even though we have a lot.
But the poet, with his innocent eyes of nature, sings very simply and comfortably about what true happiness is.
His poetry is beautiful when read carefully, and lovely when read for a long time.
His poetry makes us realize that the truth of life and the truth of the universe do not come from grand theories or strange logic, but rather arise naturally when we look at the world with a calm and composed mind.
This technique of discovery and learning has never been attempted by anyone in the history of the Earth.
Only poet Na Tae-ju did this.
By doing so, he became the creator next to God.
(Lee Soong-won, Professor at Seoul Women's University, literary critic).