Today the DPRK  is producing a large number of talented teenagers. Among them is Kim Tong Myong, who is called little poet. He is a member of 3-7 class of Pulgungori Junior Middle School in Pothonggang District, Pyongyang.

He was the firstborn of an ordinary worker’s family. From his earlier childhood he was in high favour with his neighbours, for he was uncommonly brainy and intelligent. Seeing him solve any mathematical problems of not only addition and subtraction but also multiplication and division when he was a kindergartener, they said with joy that their village had produced a future Doctor.

One day, when Tong Myong was in a lesson of primary school, the teacher told a story about Hero Ri Su Bok (1933-1951) and his note For My Only Motherland. The hero was born a son of a farmhand’s family when Korea was under the military occupation of the Japanese imperialists. Since his childhood he was deeply impressed with the importance of the country, and thus he stopped the embrasure of an enemy pillbox with his breast during the Fatherland Liberation War (19501953). Tong Myong was deeply touched by the story. The teacher said, “Hero is just a poet. Hero Ri Su Bok set an example. He died a heroic death leaving a poem which reads in part, ‘Is there any life, hope or happiness nobler, greater or more beautiful than giving up my youth for my country? Anyone can be a hero and a poet if they make efforts.” The teacher’s words lingered in the ears of the boy, and he wanted to become both a poet and a hero.

That evening, he spoke of his inward thought to his parents. Although he had intended to bring him up into a Doctor of mathematics, his father regarded the son’s thought laudable and patted him on the back in agreement, saying that what is important to a man is not what he does but how he does it.

Thus, he came to be fond of literature and had a dream of becoming a poet. He had extraordinary power of observation, imagination and expression. He knew how to grasp essences of any matter and phenomenon and how to combine his feelings about them and his relevant sentiments organically. He was a boy of great tenacity.

In his junior middle school days, Ri Jong Hyang, his class teacher, helped him make the best use of his such merits, and strove to steadily improve the contents and method of teaching to suit his psychological feature so as to make him enhance his power of creative thinking and imagination. Thanks to her careful guidance and his own efforts, his ability improved day by day. This led to creation of lots of literary works. In the course of this he had a wish to show his writings to Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

In December 2016 he completed and presented to the Supreme Leader Snowflakes of December, a collection of his own 12 nursery poems including Short Winter Night, which is about his earnest yearning for Chairman Kim Jong Il, and Please Spread Like a Flower Fragrance, which is about his yearning for Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un who is continuously on the snowy road to the front. With a pride of becoming a little poet known throughout the country, he participated in the 8th Congress of the Korean Children’s Union held in June 2017, drawing the attention of the whole country and had the honour of having a souvenir photograph taken with the Supreme Leader.

When he returned to his home he showed his representative card to his teacher, and said, “I’ll keep getting full marks at school.”

Chae Kwang Myong

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