ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the publication of Si wa kyǒngje (Poetry and Economy) to understand how poetry became the most privileged genre for advocating social justice in the South Korean literary field in the early 1980s. Bringing together members of different class backgrounds and poetic personas, Poetry and Economy challenged the existing elite-centered literary practices and enabled the social imperative of poetry. Analyzing poems by Hwang Chiu and Pak Nohae—both of whom are featured prominently in the magazine but who embody divergent poetic voices—this chapter explores the contours and contradictions that sustained the tension between poetry as literature and poetry as movement.
