A small cafe inside an alleyway, Guicheon is a place that commemorates poet Cheon Sangbyeong. The cafe used to be run by his wife, Mun Sunok. Guicheon, while poet Cheon Sangbyeong was alive, was the place where his friends would come to talk to him.

Poet Cheon Sangbyeong is known for his innocent nature. Once, he met up with poet Jung Gwang, who is also known as the Ragged Monk, a name given after his representative work 'I am a Rag', and novelist Lee Oisu and argued who has the most innocent nature. What do you think?

But what made Cheon Sangbyeong famous was the brutality of the state. He suffered twice. The first incident was being swept into the ' East Berlin Incident' and taken to the Korean Central Intelligence Agency for torture.

Another incident was his being forcibly imprisoned in an asylum for being mistaken as a mentally ill homeless person while he was wandering the streets, suffering from the aftermath of the East Berlin Incident.

There is a funny story about this. As the whereabouts of Cheon Sangbyeong fell into a mystery, his fellow poets thought he was dead and published a collection of his poems in memory of him. Thankfully, he returned after its publication, but now we have a very rare case of having a collection of poems dedicated to a late but very much alive poet in the Korean literature scene.

Cheon Sangbyeong's two keywords, 'innocence' and 'poetry collection in memory of the late poet' come from the East Berlin Incident in 1968. The poet himself said that the incident 'killed' his life.

So, what has happened? As many know, the East Berlin Incident was a fabricated spy incident created by the Central Intelligence Agency. At that time, the Central Intelligence Agency announced that about 200 European and Korean intellectuals went back and forth between East Berlin, the North Korean Embassy, and Pyeongyang to be trained as spies for espionage activities against South Korea. Around then, 70 people were arrested and imprisoned for allegedly violating the National Security Act and Anti-Communist Act.

The persons at the center of this incident were Lee Eungno and Yun Isang, students who studied abroad in Pyeongyang. Cheon Sangbyeong was arrested for allegations of 'not reporting crimes despite knowing they had been committed' regarding a fellow student, Kang Bingu, at Seoul National University School of Commerce, and threatening him and extorting a total of KRW 50,000 on dozens of occasions.

This meant that the point of the allegation was whether or not Cheon Sangbyeong knew Kang Bingu was a spy.

But as the investigation authorities released the suspect's personal details to the public early on, he was taken as a criminal even before the trials. But none of the persecuted received any sentence for the crime of espionage in the final stage of the trial. Those who were persecuted and were serving terms under other charges were all freed, so you can easily see the truth of this incident.

Cheon Sangbyeong underwent electrical torture three times while being forced by the Central Intelligence Agency to a confession. Later, he was sentenced to 1 year of imprisonment and 3 years of probation and served 6 months of prison time. He saved his friends from the talons of the authorities but suffered physically and mentally. He lost his teeth and reproductive ability, which also took his power to compose poetry.

Cheon Sangbyeong had such natural innocence, but before the East Berlin Incident, he was a totally different man. Cheon Sangbyeong was born in Japan and came to Korea after the nation's liberation. He served as an interpreter for the US during the Korean War and served as the press secretary of the Mayor Kim Hyeonok of Busan for 2 years.

Not long after that, the commemorative poet collection came out, and he married Mok Sunok. Thanks to the dedication of Moon Sunok, who loved and respected Cheon Sangbyeong, her husband, he managed to slowly resume his literary works and be his old self. Which meant he could buy a bowl of makgeolli with a KRW 1,000 note and be a happy man.

In this period, we begin to see Cheon Sangbyeong with his much-celebrated innocence.

He passed in 1993, after having resumed his literary work thanks to his loving wife. Perhaps his work, 〈Back to Heaven〉 is Cheon Sangbyeong's most iconic work.

Let me read it for you.

Titled, 〈Back to Heaven〉

I shall return home to Heaven
Hand in hand with morning dew
Fading at the touch of dawn.

I shall return home to Heaven
Together with the color of the sunset.
When the clouds beckon at me on the slope,

I will return home to Heaven
When my journey in this beautiful world
I will go home and tell them it was beautiful.


How is that? It's a beautiful yet sad poem. After you know more about Cheon Sangbyeong's life, it will make you choked up. Perhaps his life can be summed up with this very word, Guicheon, and his poetry.

Now, let's go to the last destination in the Trail of Literature, the Trail of Modernism. We must cross Yulgok-ro, the path heading north of Insa-dong, and head to Bukchon. Walk pass Seoul Museum of Craft Art and Deokseong Girls High School. The next stop is near Former President Yoon Bo-seong's House, and it's a stone post that marks the site of the Korean Language Society.