There is a young man called a “poet of shock brigade” in the High-Speed Youth Shock Brigade. His name is Ko Kuk Song.

Building monumental structures of the times on Changjon, Mirae Scientists, Ryomyong and Songhwa streets and at the construction site of first-stage 10 000 flats in the Hwasong area in Pyongyang, he expressed his joy and excitement in his poems.

“The impulses and feelings I felt when I saw the panoramic view of the capital after flying the flag of completion on the rooftops of skyscrapers and high-rise apartment buildings were translated into poems one by one. The changing looks of Pyongyang were a source of great encouragement to my literary production,” said Ko.

Many of his poems full of fond memories of the past and optimism about the rosier future were often carried by magazines and other publications in the literary circles. They include a lyric “Walking along the new street” in which he visualized the happy future of the people while walking along Songhwa Street newly built as an ideal street of the people, another lyric “Farewell” he wrote as he left for a new construction site and a poem “On the second street” which sang of the spirit of young people who have turned out for the construction of second-stage 10 000 flats on Hwasong Street after the completion of the first-stage ones.

In particular, selected poems “Tale of blue uniform,” in which he sang that the more the blue-colour uniform of the shock brigade fades, the brighter the future of the country gets, won the first place at the national mass literary work prize contest held in February 2021 and the lyric “Five years of my life” finished runner-up at the similar event held in April this year.

In fact, he was a plastering master of the shock brigade and no one had ever thought that he would produce such a large number of poems touching the hearts of builders.

One day, he heard a poem read by a woman volunteer who wrote it at a construction site and it was impressive, he said.

From that time he began to write the stirring realities he saw and what he felt from them and read them to his fellows in free time.

All the shock brigade members liked his poems as they were written in genuine and simple expressions and doubled or trebled their assignments, however difficult they were, reciting his poems.

“I’d never imagined that my poor poems would be such a great encouragement to the fellows,” recalled Ko,

Recommended by the Central Committee of the Writers Union of Korea, he attended the regular short training course for literary production which is run every year to take creative-writing classes and improved his poems.

Now, his poems such as “The construction site at night” and “Hwasong area today” are widely known to the local people along with his name.

Like an annual ring of feats

We’ll fill the sky and land with creations

To make my country shine brilliantly.

So we are the youth,

Young heroes in the era of the Workers’ Party!

A growing number of shock brigade members copy into their pocketbooks and recite his poems written with lifelike and genuine poetic words reflecting the mindset of shock brigade members who devote their youth to the prosperity of the country and the life of builders.