The Angel's Lament

Dubbed as "dew poet," Chonggi Mah launches his latest poetry book The Angel's Lament with his tale of a dew-like personal life, as hard and worthy as was. Dying and living have been his capital subject matters. In accordance with his idea, dying includes all sorts of human miseries; living encompasses triumphs in all virtuous human acts such as pure love and artistic endeavor. Naturally enough, this book is about all of the above. Only, this time he tops it all with the account of his hard-won, triumphant spiritual redemption. On his part it was his consistent quest, and on divine part a sacrificial gift of love, that brought about it. The multitudinous voices of the seasoned poet in his ripe eighties will haunt the reader to bring him back to the book again and again. Chonggi Mah was born in Tokyo, Japan. He graduated from Yonsei University, College of Medicine, in Seoul, Korea, and subsequently attended graduate school at Seoul National University. Shortly after coming to America in 1966 he was certified with the American Board of Radiology. He then worked as a professor in the Radiology Department of the Medical College of Ohio, and later as a pediatric radiologist at the Toledo Children's Hospital until his retirement in 2002. He has published over a dozen poetry and prose books since 1960, including Invisible Land of Love (1980), Flesh of The Sky (2002), and Forty Two Greens (2015). He has received many literary awards including the Daesan Literature Award, the Academy of Arts of the Republic of Korea Award, and the Yonsei Man of the Year Award (2018). Youngshil Cho holds a Master of English & English Literature from Chonnam University, Korea. A recipient of numerous grants for her English translation of modern Korean literature, she has translated and published eight contemporary Korean poetry books including Bukchon by Shin Dalja (Homa & Sekey Books, 2023), and Forty Two Greens by Chonggi Mah (Codhill Press, 2020).