Ra Heeduk

Ra's poetic imagination is grounded in the force of life and growth as manifested in motherhood and plant life. Her first collection of poems, To the Roots and the second, What Was Said Stained the Leaves pierces the fog of hypocrisy and contradictions cast over our daily lives while maintaining a spirit of forgiveness and motherly warmth. In the “soft earth that trembles with joy as it feeds its own blood to the tree roots” we find an image of a mother who willingly endures much hardship to raise a child. The tenderness with which the poet embraces this difficult world stems from her absolute belief in the force of life which causes the trees to thicken and mother's milk to flow. It can be said that Ra is constantly searching for the source of this life force. To become receptive to what the nature can tell her, Ra believes that she must be able to “listen with her eyes and see with her ears.” Such effort is detailed in her third collection of poetry It’s Not That Far From Here and her fourth, What It Means To Grow Dark. The poet uses harmonious juxtaposition of “sound” and “darkness” to signal the process of “listening” with the eyes as the “seeing” becomes useless with growing dark.

Ra Heedukk (1966~ ) was born and raised in a Korean orphanage where her parents—Christians who sought to carry out the teachings of their religion through communal living—served on the administrative staff. Na has confessed that the experience of living with orphans had made her a precocious child; and the recognition of the difference between herself and her playmates early on gave her a unique perspective on the world.