A collection of 11 traditional Korean sijo poems is on its way to the moon, launched aboard a U.S. lunar lander on January 15.
The Sejong Cultural Society, a Korean-American organization based in Chicago, announced that Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander lifted off from Florida at 1:30 a.m., carrying the poetry anthology Polaris Trilogy. The collection, which includes 11 sijo poems, is part of the Lunar Codex project, an initiative to preserve global art and culture on the moon.
The Lunar Codex serves as a “time capsule” of humanity’s creative heritage for future generations. The project plans seven total launches, and this marks the fourth. Artworks are preserved either as engravings on nickel film or stored digitally on memory cards, ensuring they survive the harsh environment of space.
The Polaris Trilogy features sijo centered on celestial themes such as the sun, moon, and stars. The selection includes eight sijo written in Korean, such as “To the Moon” by Koo Choong-hoe, “Dream of a Meteor” by Kim Dal-ho, and “Galaxy” by Kim Heung-yeol, alongside three sijo composed in English. The poems were chosen from submissions collected by the Korea Sijo Association.
Blue Ghost is expected to complete its journey and land on the lunar surface in March, where the sijo collection will join a growing archive of cultural works preserved for posterity.
