[Feature] Democracy in the Era of Pandemic and the Poetry of Earth-Dwellers / Oh Youn-kyung
The Quarterly Changbi 194, Winter 2021
Abstract
Understanding that the Candlelight and pandemic are events that led us to realize clearly our connectedness with other humans as well as non-human beings, literary critic Oh Youn-kyung argues that democracy in literature should be a movement that reveals the dense networks among all beings. She examines how some current practitioners of Korean poetry are carrying out this task and renewing it with new ideas through poems by Jang Hye-ryung, Kim Sang-hyeok, Park Soran, Jeong Da-yeon, and An Hee-yeon. It acutely and actively captures literary practices of rearranging the political within the sensibility of connection, adopting the useful concept of Earth-dwellers.