Despite official bans, this collection sold nearly a million copies, and he became an intensely symbolic figure of resistance, often called the “Faceless Poet.” In 1991 the scene of him smiling brightly while facing the death sentence still evokes a strong memory.

In 2006, he established 〈Zaituna(Olive) Nanum Munhwa School〉 in Ain Al-Hilweh, the world’s largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, and he has been supporting the school for 18 years.

Both his father, a pansori singer, who had participated in Korea's independence and progressive movements, and his mother who was a devout Catholic, greatly influenced him from his childhood.

He began to build up a labor activist’s career while working in the fields of construction, textiles, chemicals, metals, and logistics.

At that time, Korea was going through a dark period under the military dictatorship; night curfews were in place; freedom of the press, presidential elections, and labor’s primary rights were severely violated.

When we are dragged to the police for organizing a union after two months without pay, the officer who threatens to lock us up, though we’ve committed no crime, is always a frightening heaven.

[7] Withdrawing from his previous role, he helped establish a nonprofit social organization "Nanum Munhwa”(Culture of Sharing) with Koreans concerned with the great challenges confronting global humanity.

[9] In 2006, he was in Lebanon on a similar peace-making mission and publicly opposed the dispatch of Korean combat troops to the Middle East.

[10] From the start, he combined poetry-writing and photography, as he went to many countries that were suffering from wars and poverty, such as Palestine, Kurdistan, Pakistan, Aceh(Indonesia), Burma, India, Ethiopia, Sudan, Peru and Bolivia.

My poetry is a transcript of words dictated by small and powerless people, and my photos are portrayals of their strong prayers of life, and their souls.

Also, in 2010, he finally published a large new collection of poems, So You Must Not Disappear, on themes such as resistance, spirituality, education, living, revolution and love.

On our way to visit the village of the Q’ero tribe who live in the highest, deepest region of the perpetually snow-capped peaks of the Andes

In the rarefied air we are panting after only ten steps, while kicked stones fall over dizzying precipices, breaking the primeval silence of the highlands in pitch-dark night.

Though today’s world is dark as pitch and our hopes grow weak, having lost their way, so long as there is just one chance glimmer of light we are not yet finished.

The photo exhibition "Another Way" held in 2014 brought back the ‘Park No-hae Phenomenon’ by attracting over 35,000 visitors over 27 days.

The rise of the Asian era is not simply a matter of shifting economic power, but rather an event in human history that presents us with the task of ‘civilizational transition.’ What will be left when a huge population community of more than half the world follows the Western path of ‘growth and progress’?

When the citizens of Korea began to hold candlelight demonstrations in protest at the corruption of the Korean government under Park Geun-hae, he and the members of “Culture of Sharing” participated actively, then in 2017 published a large album book Candlelight Revolution for first anniversary of the 2016–17 South Korean candlight protests[11] which contains historical records.

such as One Day(2019), Simply, Firmly, Gracefully(2020), The Path(2020), My Dear Little Room(2021), Children Are Amazing(2022), and Beneath the Olive Tree(2023).

In the advanced ‘age of the individual’ standing on the plateau of liberal democracy and equality, the losses are as great and deep as the achievements; the noble human spirit and virtue have fallen to the ground, and the seeds of a hope that has existed for thousands of years are being lost and forgotten.

This is because I have my own experience and testimony that no one can replace, and there is a love and secret message that has been passed down to me.In 2024, the 40th anniversary of Dawn of Labor, an English version was published in the United States.

For this “faceless poet,” this “enemy of the state,” whose writings earned him a death sentence and years in solitary confinement, is not only a legendary figure in Korean letters and society but a prophet of global liberation—a man dedicated to the proposition that a community of kindred poetic spirits can inspire social justice.

If the plight of factory workers makes him “think about the eradication/ of the Korean language,” it also leads him to “dedicate these words, like a round of drinks, to [his] working brothers and sisters, who live and act diligently without losing hope and laughter.” These poems clarify what we most need to know, wherever we may find ourselves in the world.

Now, he is writing a book of reflexions, the only such book he has written during the thirty years since prison, “The Human Path in Space.” Dreaming of the Forest of True People, a life-community living “a graceful life with few possessions,” the poet is still planting and growing flowers and trees in his small garden, advancing along the path toward a new revolution.