Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) Vice-President for Administrative Affairs Han Seok-su has attracted attention by publishing a poetry collection.

After his debut in 2008, this is his first poetry collection. Vice-President Han has sublimated an inner, unfilled sense of lack into poetry that pursues a spiritual ideal world.

He says that a mental "hunger" served as the catalyst that led him into the world of poetry. Perhaps for that reason, the poems in this book bear traces of a poet's earnest anguish as he wrestles between everyday life and poetic inspiration, or between reality and the ideal.

'People drink coffee/Perhaps to take themselves out of the bottle/They want to ride a red carpet/They want to fly in an Arabian sky... How many sips are left?/It is still warm/Should I toss it again into that sea with a splash/What kind of bargain would the startled giant propose?' "Coffee Is Aladdin's Lamp" (excerpt).

Even in the act of drinking a cup of coffee, one senses the poet's longing for an ideal place. When drinking 'a cup of coffee' he imagines 'riding a red carpet' and 'flying in an Arabian sky'... The poet dreams like a child or as if in a fairy tale amid the everyday.

Yet even a poet who flies in the skies of an ideal world at times feels bound by reality and wishes to return the 'Aladdin's lamp' to the sea. Nevertheless, through his poetry he argues that such dreaming is meaningful and that dreaming will continue even in harsh realities.

Regarding this, literary critic Lee Hyung-kwon commented, "Han Seok-su's poetic tendency—either to escape from everyday life or to seek poetic inspiration within it—comprises poems that reflect on tedious daily life and poems that depart from that life to pursue a spiritual ideal." He added, "This poetry collection bears traces of a poet's earnest anguish as he grapples between everyday life and poetic inspiration, or between reality and the ideal."

Han Seok-su was born in 1959 in Gongju, Chungnam. He graduated from Hanyang University and the University of Iowa (Ph.D.), and made his literary debut in 2008 in the quarterly poetry journal Aeji. He has served as Innovation Personnel Planning Officer, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology; Vice-President for Administrative Affairs, Chungnam National University; Deputy Superintendent, Chungnam Provincial Office of Education; Acting Superintendent, Chungnam Provincial Office of Education; Director, Training Institute of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology; Policy Coordination Planning Officer, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology; University Support Officer; and Director, Educational Information and Statistics Bureau. He is currently serving as Vice-President for Administrative Affairs at JBNU.