Choi Jeongrye

Jeongrye Choi (Hangul: 최정례) (1955 – 16 January 2021) was a modern South Korean poet.
Life.
Jeongrye Choi was born in a city near Seoul. She studied Korean poetry at Korea University and received her PhD from the same school. She participated in the IWP (International Writing Program) as a poet at University of Iowa in 2006 and stayed one year at University of California in Berkeley as a visiting writer in 2009. Her poems were printed in "Free Verse", "Iowa Review", "Text Journal", "World Literature Today", and various Japanese literary magazines. An English-language collection, 'Instances' (which she co-translated with Wayne de Fremery and Brenda Hillman) has been published. She was a lecturer at Korea University.
Work.
Many of Choi's poems are about time and memory. She usually uses fragments of time and memory as tools for looking into others and the world, or for identifying herself. What ultimately emerges from her exploration of fragmented memories and chaos of time is the sense of emptiness and loneliness, which is the core of existence.
Choi's poetic language was simple and condensed. She uses plain words and turns it around to make them unfamiliar and strange.
In Instances, her work is described as:
Choi has received several awards including the Modern Literature Prize in 2007, the Baekseok Literature Prize in 2012, the Midang Literature Prize and the Ojangwhan Literature Prize in 2015.