| Park Nohae | |
| Birth Name: | Park Gi-pyeong (박기평) |
| Birth Place: | Hampyeong County, South Jeolla Province, South Korea |
| Boards: | NANUMMUNHWA(Sharing of Culture) |
Park Nohae (ko|박노해; born 1957) is a South Korean poet, photographer and activist.[1] [2]
At the age of twenty-seven, Park published his first collection of poems, titled Dawn of Labor, in 1984. Despite official bans, this collection sold nearly a million copies, and he became an intensely symbolic figure of resistance, often called the “Faceless Poet.”
In 1991 the scene of him smiling brightly while facing the death sentence still evokes a strong memory. After seven and a half years in prison, he was pardoned in 1998. Thereafter, he was reinstated as a contributor to the democratization movement, but he refused any state compensation, saying “I will not live today by selling the past.”
In 2003, right after the United States’ invasion of Iraq, he flew to the field of war. Since then, he often visits countries that are suffering from war and poverty in order to raise awareness about the situation through his photos and writings. In 2006, he established 〈Zaituna(Olive) Nanum Munhwa School〉 in Ain Al-Hilweh, the world’s largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, and he has been supporting the school for 18 years.
In 2024, his first collection of poems, Dawn of labor published in United States.
Park Nohae was born in 1957 in Hampyeong, South Jeolla Province, a southern province of South Korea, and grew up in a farming town, Beolgyo, Goheung. Both his father, a pansori singer, who had participated in Korea's independence and progressive movements, and his mother who was a devout Catholic, greatly influenced him from his childhood. Later, his brother became a priest and headed the Catholic Priests Association for Justice that took a leading role in the democratization of South Korea, and his younger sister became a nun. At the age of seven when his father suddenly died, his fate began to get on a wild journey, as his family became poor, and the family members had to be separated from each other. Such misfortune and solitude at his early age made him get immersed in reading and writing.
Park left his hometown and moved to Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. He worked during daytime and attended the night classes at Seollin Commercial High School. He began to build up a labor activist’s career while working in the fields of construction, textiles, chemicals, metals, and logistics. At that time, Korea was going through a dark period under the military dictatorship; night curfews were in place; freedom of the press, presidential elections, and labor’s primary rights were severely violated.[3]
The 1980s, when the labor movement was at its most active in South Korea, was also the most active period for the creation of labor poetry. The poetry of this time, represented mainly by Park Nohae and Baek Mu-san.[4] He then took the pseudonym Park Nohae(‘No’ means ‘labor,’ ‘Hae’ means ‘liberation’) and published his first collection of poems, Dawn of Labor, in 1984, under that name. Because it was almost the first collection of poems written by workers from the perspective of workers, it produced a huge shock wave not only in Korean society but also in the literary and intellectual communities. Korea was at that time under the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan, with strict censorship. Despite official bans, this collection sold nearly a million copies and created intense interest. The unknown poet became an intensely symbolic figure of resistance.
For many years he was active underground, helping establish the South Korean Socialist Workers' Alliance in 1989. After spending seven years of his life hiding from the police, he was finally arrested in 1991. After twenty-four days of investigation, coupled with cruel, illegal torture, at his trial the state prosecutors even demanded the death sentence for him as an enemy of the state.[5] He was finally sentenced to life imprisonment.[6] Park Nohae said the following in his final statement in court: "Even if I disappear on the scaffold, I hope that more Park No-haes will appear and build a society where the working class is the master."
While he was in prison, a second poetry collection was published, True Beginning(1993) as well as a collection of essays, Only a Person is Hope(1997). He was finally freed in 1998 after being amnestied by President Kim Dae-Jung who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.[7] Withdrawing from his previous role, he helped establish a nonprofit social organization "Nanum Munhwa”(Culture of Sharing) with Koreans concerned with the great challenges confronting global humanity.
On 3 May 1999, a documentary titled 'Park Nohae, Korea's New Hope - Only a Person is Hope', produced by Toshiro Kishi, Seoul Bureau Chief of NHK, was broadcast in Japan. He interviewed Park Nohae for seven months, filming more than 50 hours of footage and compressing it into one hour.
In 2003, at the United States’ invasion of Iraq, he went to protect helpless civilians and promote peace.[8] At that time, he undertook peace activities in Bagdad and in other Middle Eastern countries for 75 days.[9] In 2006, he was in Lebanon on a similar peace-making mission and publicly opposed the dispatch of Korean combat troops to the Middle East.[10] From the start, he combined poetry-writing and photography, as he went to many countries that were suffering from wars and poverty, such as Palestine, Kurdistan, Pakistan, Aceh(Indonesia), Burma, India, Ethiopia, Sudan, Peru and Bolivia. In 2010, he held his first exhibition of photos “Ra Wilderness,” and since then he has continued to hold exhibitions to draw public attention to global issues of poverty, human values, and warfare.
Also, in 2010, he finally published a large new collection of poems, So You Must Not Disappear, on themes such as resistance, spirituality, education, living, revolution and love.
The photo exhibition "Another Way" held in 2014 brought back the ‘Park No-hae Phenomenon’ by attracting over 35,000 visitors over 27 days. From Tibet, the land that is the roof of the human spirit, to Pakistan, which was once called heaven but is now called hell, to India with its two extreme faces, and further on to Burma, Indonesia, and Laos, a total of 140 carefully selected photos from 6 countries were exhibited.
The Asia in Park No-hae’s photos is not a ‘land of tears’ or a mystified ‘Oriental’ Asia, but a land where the ‘last seeds’ remain. Through his photographs of ‘another way,’ he presented ‘the prototype of a good life’ and ‘a worldview of hope.’
In 2024, 10th anniversary reissue of the photo essay Another Way was published.
When the citizens of Korea began to hold candlelight demonstrations in protest at the corruption of the Korean government under Park Geun-hae, he and the members of “Culture of Sharing” participated actively, then in 2017 published a large album book Candlelight Revolution for first anniversary of the 2016–17 South Korean candlight protests[11] which contains historical records.
Since then, he continues, with the members of “Culture of Sharing,” to hold photo exhibitions in a dedicated gallery, the Ra Cafe and Gallery, in Seoul. The photo exhibitions are held under the general theme of ‘Questions about Life’, and a photo essay of the same name is published each time. such as One Day(2019), Simply, Firmly, Gracefully(2020), The Path(2020), My Dear Little Room(2021), Children Are Amazing(2022), and Beneath the Olive Tree(2023). All essay texts are in both Korean and English.
In 2021, he published a collection of aphorism, Reading While Walking Along which he has been writing every morning for seven years on social media.
In 2022, he published a new collection of poems, the first in 12 years, Seeing Your Heaven.
In 2024, he published a first collection of autobiographical essays, the first in 12 years, The Tear-flowering Boy: Childhood Stories.
In 2024, the 40th anniversary of Dawn of Labor, an English version was published in the United States.
Now, he is writing a book of reflexions, the only such book he has written during the thirty years since prison, “The Human Path in Space.” Dreaming of the Forest of True People, a life-community living “a graceful life with few possessions,” the poet is still planting and growing flowers and trees in his small garden, advancing along the path toward a new revolution.
(Gallery M, Seoul, Korea, 2010) - His first photo exhibition[19] [20]
(Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, Seoul, Korea, 2010)[21]
(Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, Seoul, Korea, 2014) - Photo exhibition on Asia (Pakistan, Laos, Burma, Indonesia, Tibet, India)[22] [23]