Baek Seok (born Paek Ki-haeng; July 1, 1912 - January 7, 1996) was a Korean poet. He was born in Chŏngju in North Pyongan, and started his journalist career at Chosun Ilbo in 1934. He published his first poem "Chŏngju Fortress" (정주성, Jeongjuseong) on 31 August 1935 issue of Chosun Ilbo. On January 20 next year, he published a collection of the poems he had written entitled Deer (사슴, Sasŭm). Even though Deer contained 33 poems, many of which were new, seven of them were already published in magazines or newspapers in slightly different forms. Until 1948, he published about 60 more pieces, but is not believed to have produced another poetry book. In South Korea, the publication of his works was strictly prohibited for a while because he was labelled as a North Korean poet and a communist. However, since 1987 when a collection of his works (poems and essays) were first introduced after the Korean War, he has been widely re-evaluated by scholars and critics. He is now regarded as having opened a new face of Korean socialist modernism with a group of literary writers. In 2007, he was listed by the Korean Poets' Association among the ten most important modern Korean poets. Name His real name is Baek Ki-haeng, and his nickname is Baek Ki-yeon (백기연, 白夔衍) in 1915. After the defeat of the Japanese Empire in 1945 and the liberation of Korea, he changed his name to Baek Seok, and his main residence was Suwon. The name Seok is known to have been used because he loved the beginning of Takuboku Ishikawa, a Japanese poet. Life Early life and Background Baek Seok was born named Baek Ki-haeng in Chongju, North Pyongan on 1 July 1912, the son of Baek Si-bak (백시박, 白時璞) and Lee Bong-woo (李鳳宇). His father worked at Chosun Ilbo as a photographer. Baek Si-bak was not wealthy, but he participated in raising building funds for Osan school. Lee Bong-woo was known as a neat and good cook. In 1918, Baek Seok entered Osan elementary school (founded in 1907) and his brother, Hyeob-haeng, was born. In 1919 Osan school was entirely burned down by Japanese military police for reasons that led to the March 1st Movement. Cho Man-sik, who was the principal of Osan school, was arrested and the school had to be closed for a year and a half. In 1924, Baek graduated