Royal Inspector, governor of a province, personal secretary to the king, second prime minister, general of the army - these are some of the positions held by Chong Ch’ol during a career that was punctuated by periods of voluntary retirement, dismissal and exile. He was by nature a brilliant but rather stubborn man, and his career is marked by continuous controversy. Chong Ch’ol is a poet of the first rank, indeed the first shijo poet to leave to posterity a considerable body of poems, one hundred and seven to be exact. These poems reveal the startling phrase, the spare, elegant expression, the density of meaning, the telling use of irony, which are so much a part of the shijo tradition.