Poetry is language. That is a sign or symbol or mark./ It may contain thought or ideas, but it is not ideas or thinking./ It may express all the range of human emotion. / But if its language is not vital, fresh and surprising,/ those emotions will be blurred and ineffectual./ Poetr is vital, fresh, and surprising language./ Stale language will be ineffective./ Commonplace language will have no impact./ Without a vital language,/ the basic devices of the poet will be nothing.// Symbols come together to create meaning and existence./ In such a process, the poet writes poetry./ How will the readers take such a phenomenon?/ They say that poetry is dead./ For what shall the poet live?// He must find the oxygen/ which may or may not exist in the unknown world./ The soul that exists in nature and the soul of a human/ must come together to create a new being.// Natural phenomenon, human, science, and all other things/ change over a single night./ The poet must lay his heart to people,/ and throw the image on the earth and the space./ I just wish that my unfinished poem/ will turn into peace and happiness.
― 이덕상 DEOKSANG LEE, 책머리글 〈(작가의 말) Poet's acknowledgments〉
