[KS] Kim Jong-Gil

[McCann, David]

Professor Kim was such a wonderfully supportive guide when I was at Korea University back in 1973-74 doing my research on modern Korean poetry as a graduate/visiting student.  He had so many compelling stories to share about the literary/academic circles in Korea, and overall such a profound love for poetry, whether in English or Korean or Classical Chinese.

David McCann



On Apr 1, 2017, at 9:44 AM, Brother Anthony <ansonjae at sogang.ac.kr> wrote:

> I regret to inform you that the senior poet Kim Jong-Gil (aka Kim Chi-Gyu) died suddenly in the morning of April 1, only 2 weeks after the death of his wife. He was born in 1926 and 2017 is the 70th anniversary of his recognition as a poet. He was a graduate of Korea University and taught modern British and American poetry there, up to and beyond his retirement in 1992. He translated many poems by 20th-century British and American poets into Korean and also translated a considerable number of modern Korean poems into English; some of the latter figured in our recent anthology "The Colors of Dawn." His own poems were relatively few in number because of his many other activities but a number of them can be found in Korean school textbooks. In 1988 he became President of the Korean Poets’ Association. In 1993 he was elected a member of the Korean Academy of Arts. Throughout his life he composed Hansi in the traditional manner, and he published a collection of his own English translations of Korean poems in Classical Chinese. I am especially sad because we had prepared together a volume of translations of his own poems which was due to be published soon and now he will not see it.
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