The first poetry collection by Jeong Ji-yong, a master of Korean modernist literature!

Jeong Ji-yong is a representative poet of Korean modernist literature.
When Jeong Ji-yong's first poetry collection was published, it caused a stir in the literary world, and many new poets imitated Jeong Ji-yong, so much so that a phenomenon called "Ji-yong's epigonen (imitators)" was formed, showing the great influence Jeong Ji-yong's work had on the literary world.
Jeong Ji-yong was a poet whom Yun Dong-ju admired, and he even wrote the preface to Yun Dong-ju's third anniversary posthumous poetry collection.

The first edition of “Jeong Ji-yong’s Poetry Collection” published by The Story this time was produced by borrowing the original cover design of the first edition published by Simunhaksa in 1935.
The text has been edited to conform to Korean spelling rules for readers' convenience, but the original text has been preserved as much as possible so that the meaning of the poem is not damaged.
Occasionally, footnotes are provided to help readers understand words that are no longer in use or difficult Chinese characters.


This collection of poems includes Jeong Ji-yong's representative works, including "Perfume," "Lamp," and "Café France," and contains a particularly large number of poems about the "sea."
This corresponds to the 'mountain' that appears in Jeong Ji-yong's second collection of poems, Baekrokdam, and forms the two major axes of Jeong Ji-yong's poetry.

Jeong Ji-yong strived to make our own voice heard in these chaotic times.
He is evaluated as a poet who brought out the beauty of the Korean language through restrained language and opened new horizons for Korean poetry in the imagistic and modernist genres.

To the eastern end of the wide plain
The old story is about a stream that winds around,
Spotted bull
Commentary: Where the golden lazy cries,

-I can't possibly forget that place, even in my dreams.

When the ash cools in the nitriding furnace,
The sound of the night wind running through the empty field,
My old father, who was in a light sleepiness
A place where straw pillows are raised and kept,

-I can't possibly forget that place, even in my dreams.

My heart grew from the soil
I miss the blue sky
To find the arrow that was shot carelessly
The place where the grass was soaked in dew,

-I can't possibly forget that place, even in my dreams.

Like the night waves dancing on the legendary sea
With a young sister with black hair flying around her ears
Nothing special and nothing pretty
My wife who is barefoot all year round
A place where I picked up ears of grain with the hot sunlight on my back,

-I can't possibly forget that place, even in my dreams.

Seonggeun star in the sky
Stepping into an unknown sand castle,
A shabby roof where frost crows cry and pass by,
A place where people sit back and frolic in the dim light,

-I can't possibly forget that place, even in my dreams.

---From "Perfume"