"The war had started on the same day as my 12th birthday. It was the most colourful period of anybody’s life, teenage. And it was lost to me, in suffering and helplessness. But, later, it became the source of my writing" is the word of a famous poet Wolsan Ki Dong kim.
Though he wrote 250 writings, none crack the recounts the war between North and South Korea. Though this war was in reality a proxy war between the USA and USSR. He became homeless and had to look after his family of widows and orphans who no longer had a roof over their heads. He lost his eleven family members in the aftermath leaving behind nine.Before he crossed his teens, he was chained to bonded labour for seven years to a wealthy household in the village, for had borrowed rice from them to feed his homeless family.
Wolsan mountain in South Korea is at the core of all his poetry. As a child he used to climb the mountain everyday where he dreamt about his future and nurtured his hopes.
He has been adopted the pen name as Wolsan. His poetry is like a shadow of the grief-stricken childhood. The mountain of grief is much like a cold, misty hillock. But it also promised the hope of a sunrise to a young poet.His writings - poetry and essays – bear the scars of a severed soul.
