His writing career began in 1987 when several of his poems, including "Geumho River" (금호강), were published in the literary journal Literature of Our Age.
[2][3] Song published his first poetry collection, The Soil Has the Memory of a Square (흙은 사각형의 기억을 갖고 있다, 1989) two years later.
[2] His second poetry collection, The Chair That Remained Empty for Ten Years (10년 동안의 빈 의자, 1994), similarly focused on contrasting opposites, with more emphasis on the use of language.
[8] Song Chanho also frequently uses nature imagery to convey meaning, such as in Red Eyes, Camellia (붉은 눈, 동백, 2000).
[9] More recent works, such as The Night of the Cat's Return (고양이가 돌아오는 저녁, 2009),[10] have more explicitly criticized society and civilization in general.