The poems of Ko Hyeong-Ryeol are mostly inspired by the landscapes and cityscapes of Korea, occasionally echoing journeys to other lands. The poet allows his memories and imagination free reign so that his poems escape from the limits of naturalistic description and invite the reader to sense both the interrelatedness and the impermanence of all things. Many poems are reflections of the Buddhist sense of unreality, the discontinuity of time and matter. Ko Hyeong-ryeol grew up in the shadow of Mount Seorak, a wild, rocky mountain in the East of Korea, and many poems return to it. These translations make his work available in English for the first time.
