www.gwangjunewsgic.com September 2018 50 50 ARTS & CULTURE Gwangju Writes FALSE ALARMS Knock, knock, knock, Please open the door. I’d like to stay for the night. Te night is deep and cold, Who could be there? Te door is opened to see that Blackie’s tail had sounded a false alarm. Cluck, cluck, cluck, An egg has been laid! Small Fry, come get your egg! Small Fry goes running to see… An egg? What egg?! Tat old hen, in broad daylight, brazenly sounded a false alarm. (1937) NO TOMORROW On hearing “tomorrow, tomorrow,” About it I asked. “Afer the night sleeps, when the day breaks, it’s tomorrow,” came the reply. I, who have searched for a new day, woke from my sleep and looked around. It was not then tomorrow but today! Friends, there is no tomorrow! …………… (December 24, 1934) Yun Dongju and His Poetry Text and poetry translation by David E. Shaffer ARTS & CULTURE Y un Dongju (윤동주) is one of Korea’s best-loved poets, as well as one of its shortest-lived (1917– 1945). Born into a Christian family in the Bukkan- do area north of the Korean Peninsula, Yun attended secondary schools there and in Pyongyang. Te years surrounding his graduation were his most prolifc as a poet, a time when half of his works were joyful children’s poems: As did many independence-minded families at the beginning of Japanese colonial rule, Yun’s family lef the tightly controlled peninsula for the lighter control of Bukkan-do before Yun’s birth. Tough heavily veiled, his anti-Japanese feelings and sense of futility in waiting for independence can be detected in his early writings: