Ko Un Is A Crucial Poet For

Everybody Has A Different Idea Of When Those Good Old Days Were, But Everyone Is Convinced That There Was A Time When Literature Really Mattered And That It Doesn't Now. They Also Tend To Believe That It Really Matters Someplace Else - In Very Improbable Places Often. Russia Is Someone's Idea Of A Place Where Literature Really Counts.

All The New Thinking Is About Loss. In This It Resembles All The Old Thinking

The Record Of Poetry In The 20th Century Isn't All That Great Anyway. Most Of The Poets Who Weren't Fascists Were Stalinists.

The Market Doesn't Make Communities. Markets Make Networks Of Self-interested Individuals, And They Work As Long As There's More Than Enough To Go Around.

They Are The Kinds Of Things That Make Us A Community: Attachment To Place, Attachment To Local Arts Traditions, The Ability To Read Literature, The Ability To Look At Paintings, The Sense Of Connectedness To The Land, The Sense Of Community That Comes From People Taking Care Of Their Own.