Baek Seok (1912-1996) was a foundational poet of the early modernist movement in Korea, created palatal and pastoral poetry that tapped into the memories and han of the people through universals of food and farm, mountain and village and beasts, not mystic but common and not common but comfortable. This most Korean of Korean poets developed a genre unique to Korea, full of the foods and landscapes he relished and remembered, yet contributing to a discipline of poetry that was both Korean and modern at once.