Brother Enemy: Poems of the Korean War

by Ji-Moon Suh (Editor)

Twenty-one poets, male and female, North Korean and South Korean, well-known and long forgotten, appear in this collection, the first of its kind in English. The poems reflect the reality of living in a country torn in half by political ideologies. An introduction by translator Ji-moon Suh places the poems and the poets within a historical context that describes the suffering and despair of pitting brother against brother.

176 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2002

About the author

Suh Ji-moon was born in 1948 and grew up mostly in Seoul. She received her B.A. from Ewha Womans University, her MA from West Georgia College in the US, and her PhD from the State University of New York at Albany. She has translated numerous classics of Korean fiction and poetry into English.

Reviews

[Rina Olsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who loves it when history and creative writing are combined, this was 5/5. Even though I tend to prefer abstractions to flat-out statements in poetry, I overlooked this while reading because these poems were written to reflect the Korean War. Basically, the realism was what drew me to this collection.

As Suh Ji-Moon notes in the introduction, “When the Korean War broke out, the South Korean Defense Ministry called in writers to produce morale-raising propaganda.” Despite this, these poems felt less like “propaganda” and more like a window into a harrowing time period. Poems such as “A Grave” detail simple images like “In a common grave / On this shabby slope / Overgrown with grass”; however, the layers and depth of these images are exposed with raw lines such as “And offers silent tribute / To the two young men / Who could confirm their brotherhood / Only after death.” Not much like propaganda at all—more like a lament over the war tearing the peninsula into two.

This poetry collection captures the despair, confusion, and dogged perseverance that characterized the era. It offers snapshots through the eyes of poets, soldiers, civilians, hospital patients, the young, the elderly. A must-read for anyone interested in East Asian history/poetry.