Dawn of Labor

Dawn of Labor, at last translated into English, is the legendary South Korean poet Park Nohae’s first collection, published in 1984 when he was twenty-seven years old. Despite a government ban, the book sold a million copies and propelled Park Nohae as the generation’s leading resistance poet. Dawn of Labor is an enduring classic that shook a society, transformed lives, and demonstrated the power of poetry.

The war of night labor once over,
I pour cold soju over my aching heart.
Ah . . . I can’t go on like this for long.
For sure, I can’t go on like this.
—“Dawn of Labor”

If I ever kill myself, I’ll probably do it at dawn.
—“For a Peaceful Evening”

We too want to become heaven.
Not a dark clouded heaven
that presses down,
but a clear blue heaven
over a world that lifts one another.
—“Heaven”

• Park Nohae, Author

  Park Nohae is a renowned South Korean activist-poet and photographer. The Dawn of Labor was his first poetry book. The collection transformed him into a leading resistance poet.

• Cheehyung Harrison Kim, Translator

  Cheehyung Harrison Kim is associate professor of Korean history at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

• Brother Anthony, Translator

  Brother Anthony of Taizé, who also goes by his Korean name An Sonjae, is a literature scholar and translator and is professor emeritus of English language and literature at Sogang University in Seoul.