미주 한인시의 디아스포라 의식과 전위적 언어 -1970년대 개인 시집들을 중심으로

Abstract

Korean American poems in the 1970’s illustrate various themes and poetic expressions. Song-he Kim, Seon-young Choi, and Gab-ju Hwang focus on lyricism that expresses lyric feelings and nostalgia. The poems of Kim and Choi reveal genuine emotions caused by natural objects. Hwang’s poems express his journey into settling down in the US through imagination on local America as well as nostalgia on his homeland, Korea. Wan Go’s poems and So-hyeon Jang’s poems criticize political and social issues of both Korea and the US. While Go’s poems harshly criticize Korean political issues, Jang’s poems focus on issues of the US or Korea Town in the US. Meanwhile, Jong-gi Ma’s poems explore existential self-consciousness embracing diaspora condition as an immigrant. I-mun Park’s poems show philosophical thoughts on human nature through linguistic experiment and avantgarde imagination. Ma’s and Park’s poems left deep impression on Korean American literary world through intellectual self-reflection that is one of the main themes of modernistic poetry. Those poetry collections have significant meanings in the history of Korean American literature. They play an important role in leading the smooth transition from the early stage of Korean American literature to its next level. In particular, those poems show the same poetic development as Korea’s at that time, which embraced lyricism that Modern Literature actively promoted, realism that Changbi advocated, and modernism that Moonji mainly promoted. These Korean American poems play a key role in helping Korean American poetry to become a sub-genre as a local American literature. This is because based on an experience to write poems in Korea, Korean American poets show poetic achievement and they were able to overcome poor poetic quality and immaturity that any poetic groups experience in an early stage. Specifically, despite their various poetic propensity, the common theme that those Korean American poets show directly or indirectly is diaspora consciousness. Because this diaspora consciousness is constantly shown in Korean American poetry in any period as a psychological and emotional background, it can be said that those poems have the continuity in terms of the history of Korean American literature.