Born in Cornwall, England, in 1942, Brother Anthony often refers to himself as “the only Cornish-Korean.” He became a naturalized Korean citizen in 1994, 14 years after he first set foot in Korea. He is also a member of the Taize monastic order based in France and taught for 30 years at Sogang University until his retirement in 2007. 

He is a prolific translator of Korean literature, having translated works by famous poets such as Ko Un and Ku Sang. This year, Brother Anthony released two translations of poetry compilations -- “No Flower Blooms Without Wavering,” which contains works of Do Jong-hwan, and “Night-sky Checkerboard” by Oh Sae-young -- and participated in editing and translating an anthology, “The Colors of Dawn: Twentieth-Century Korean Poetry.” 

The anthology, published by the University of Hawaii Press, features poets such as Sim Hun, born in 1901, alongside more familiar modern and contemporary poets such as Kim Chi-ha.

Poet Do, according to Brother Anthony, is an accessible poet because his message is “simple.”

“Everybody knows what love is and pain is and sorrow is and hope is. (His) poems are about these simple universal values,” he said.

Brother Anthony lamented how nowadays, life for students is more about “getting a job,” “fun” and “superficiality.”

“Just preparing for job interviews is not life,” he said. “But the world right now is very confusing, and it’s hard to understand what’s going on.”

The respected translator hoped, however, that younger students would try to find meaning in other, if less conventional, ways while navigating the complexities of the modern world. 

Uncertainty pervades recent poetry as well, he added.

“The older poets knew, or thought they knew better, what kind of world they were living in and what kind of poetry you could write in that world,” said Brother Anthony.

Poetry today, however, is more a series of fragmented images and “disjointed impressions” that are not linked by grammar or narrative sense, he said.

“Younger poets now, they can do whatever they like, but it’s not clear what has actual meaning and value. They’re not sure what they’re trying to say. The world is shaky and apparently it’s not clear often what you mean by poetry,” he said.

All an artist can do is “try to produce a work that has validity and meaning in the present time and more or less speaks to modern humanity,” he said.

By Rumy Doo (doo@heraldcorp.com)