By Mark Peterson
I have set up a research foundation, the Frog Outside the Well Research Center, where I work on three areas ― and only three areas ― where I have some degree of expertise. They are: traditional Confucian practice, the re-evaluation of Korean history, and encouraging the writing of "sijo" in Korean and English.
Sijo is a traditional Korean poetic form.
The largest online sijo writing contest recently concluded and I would like to share the results with The Korea Times readership.
The contest was the 13th annual event sponsored by the Sejong Cultural Society, a private organization of mostly Korean-Americans based in Chicago. It was the 13th year for secondary school students in what they call the pre-college division; two years ago they opened an adult division. In the pre-college division, the judges selected two first-place winners ― a tie.
There were first, second and third-place winners and several "honorable mentions" in each division. There was a prize of $500 for first place, down to $50 for honorable mentions.
When the contest began, there were many Korean-American entrants. Now, the non-Korean American entrants are in a huge majority, showing sijo are starting to be recognized among a broad spectrum of both the student and adult divisions.
By Elizabeth Flesch from Arrowhead High School in Hartland, Wisconsin:
"Sunday in the Park with Me"
Picture-perfect people relax in the shimmering Sunday sun.
Pink parasols twirl against an azure sky and lush grass.
I step back from the canvas, wishing I could jump into the frame.
This is a very nice sijo with a twist at the end that reveals the scene is a painting, one that the painter or a passerby, the author's perspective, wishes she could be a part of.
By Andrew Zhao, from a high school in British Columbia:
"Lost Letters"
A hundred thousand love-filled letters I have written for you.
Tonight, my pen runs dry, trapping my words within my mind.
Why do I still stoke the flame that I know will never warm me?
There are several appealing things about this sijo: the idea that a pen running dry, from writing so much, "traps words in my mind" is really an engaging image. And then stoking "the flame that I know will never warm me" is so personal and self-revealing. This is just a beautiful capture of the frustrations of finding one's true love.
Both these sijo do something that I really like, but is hard to find in some English sijo, and that is the respect for the obligatory three syllable beats at the start, the "set-up," of the third line. Here, "I step back," and "Why do I," really use that formula well.
The winner in the adult division was Alice Davidson, a 40-year high school teacher in Houston, Texas, who specializes in China, and more recently Korea, in her world history and East Asian studies classes. This was her first attempt at writing a sijo, and she was really surprised to get the phone call that she had won first place.
That sweater, so warm and soft ― yet full of holes, hangs unworn.
"Let's toss it!" Downsizing means tough decisions. "No one wears it."
"Wait!" I cry. "Grandma made that when I was young. It still fits."
This sijo is as warm as the sweater it describes. And it speaks to the sentimentality that we all invest in the things we love and that grow dearer as time goes by, especially if those things are emotionally tied to a precious loved one. Structurally, its rhythm is perfect. "'Wait!' I cry" ― is the perfect three-beat set-up for the concluding last line.
The second-place winner in the adult division was written by a retired English teacher, Kim Jasper, who entered the contest as part of her 2020 goals to "be more creative." She states that she "always appreciated the forced creativity demanded of a formula poem." It's a dark poem of our coronavirus times. In her photo on the webpage she is wearing a mask!
"Viral Transformation"
Faces behind colorful scarves,
skaters glide on the frozen ice.
A young pair practices:
looping, spinning, spiraling ― breathless
On the rink, masked workers stack bodies,
covered by sheets of white.
The third-place winner, Julia Shute, a middle school teacher from Southern California, started studying sijo to teach her students about Asia and Korea. She encouraged her students to enter the contest and then thought she should give it a try.
"Social Distancing"
Neighborhoods, bereft of neighbors. Teeming cities, bare.
We orbit our own lives. Joined in isolation. All, alone.
We see how our fates are interwoven, just as they unravel.
In these dark times, these are compelling images ― neighborhoods with no neighbors, "joined in isolation," interwoven and unraveling.
You can find more on SejongCulturalSociety.org and follow the links to the 2020 sijo contest.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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Sijo is a traditional Korean poetic form.
The largest online sijo writing contest recently concluded and I would like to share the results with The Korea Times readership.
The contest was the 13th annual event sponsored by the Sejong Cultural Society, a private organization of mostly Korean-Americans based in Chicago. It was the 13th year for secondary school students in what they call the pre-college division; two years ago they opened an adult division. In the pre-college division, the judges selected two first-place winners ― a tie.
There were first, second and third-place winners and several "honorable mentions" in each division. There was a prize of $500 for first place, down to $50 for honorable mentions.
When the contest began, there were many Korean-American entrants. Now, the non-Korean American entrants are in a huge majority, showing sijo are starting to be recognized among a broad spectrum of both the student and adult divisions.
By Elizabeth Flesch from Arrowhead High School in Hartland, Wisconsin:
"Sunday in the Park with Me"
Picture-perfect people relax in the shimmering Sunday sun.
Pink parasols twirl against an azure sky and lush grass.
I step back from the canvas, wishing I could jump into the frame.
This is a very nice sijo with a twist at the end that reveals the scene is a painting, one that the painter or a passerby, the author's perspective, wishes she could be a part of.
By Andrew Zhao, from a high school in British Columbia:
"Lost Letters"
A hundred thousand love-filled letters I have written for you.
Tonight, my pen runs dry, trapping my words within my mind.
Why do I still stoke the flame that I know will never warm me?
There are several appealing things about this sijo: the idea that a pen running dry, from writing so much, "traps words in my mind" is really an engaging image. And then stoking "the flame that I know will never warm me" is so personal and self-revealing. This is just a beautiful capture of the frustrations of finding one's true love.
Both these sijo do something that I really like, but is hard to find in some English sijo, and that is the respect for the obligatory three syllable beats at the start, the "set-up," of the third line. Here, "I step back," and "Why do I," really use that formula well.
The winner in the adult division was Alice Davidson, a 40-year high school teacher in Houston, Texas, who specializes in China, and more recently Korea, in her world history and East Asian studies classes. This was her first attempt at writing a sijo, and she was really surprised to get the phone call that she had won first place.
That sweater, so warm and soft ― yet full of holes, hangs unworn.
"Let's toss it!" Downsizing means tough decisions. "No one wears it."
"Wait!" I cry. "Grandma made that when I was young. It still fits."
This sijo is as warm as the sweater it describes. And it speaks to the sentimentality that we all invest in the things we love and that grow dearer as time goes by, especially if those things are emotionally tied to a precious loved one. Structurally, its rhythm is perfect. "'Wait!' I cry" ― is the perfect three-beat set-up for the concluding last line.
The second-place winner in the adult division was written by a retired English teacher, Kim Jasper, who entered the contest as part of her 2020 goals to "be more creative." She states that she "always appreciated the forced creativity demanded of a formula poem." It's a dark poem of our coronavirus times. In her photo on the webpage she is wearing a mask!
"Viral Transformation"
Faces behind colorful scarves,
skaters glide on the frozen ice.
A young pair practices:
looping, spinning, spiraling ― breathless
On the rink, masked workers stack bodies,
covered by sheets of white.
The third-place winner, Julia Shute, a middle school teacher from Southern California, started studying sijo to teach her students about Asia and Korea. She encouraged her students to enter the contest and then thought she should give it a try.
"Social Distancing"
Neighborhoods, bereft of neighbors. Teeming cities, bare.
We orbit our own lives. Joined in isolation. All, alone.
We see how our fates are interwoven, just as they unravel.
In these dark times, these are compelling images ― neighborhoods with no neighbors, "joined in isolation," interwoven and unraveling.
You can find more on SejongCulturalSociety.org and follow the links to the 2020 sijo contest.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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