Ulteomal

Ulteomal is a place-memory word that evokes the memories, emotions, history, and lived experiences accumulated in a particular place.
Ulteomal is distinct from a mere place name. A place term becomes an Ulteomal when it is connected with personal and communal memories, historical events, everyday culture, and recurring experiences, thereby acquiring a distinctive meaning within a poem.
Ulteomal gives a poem a concrete sense of place, connects individual memory with communal memory, and reveals Korean locality and everyday culture. It also transforms natural landscapes and urban spaces into poetic places and broadens the historical and social background of a work.
Within the four conceptual axes of Korea Haiku, Ulteomal represents the axis of place.

Korea Haiku is a literary form that embodies Korean nature and everyday life, memories of place, and cultural transmission within a brief fixed form. A place appearing in a poem may function not merely as a geographical location but as a poetic space in which individual and communal memories, history, emotion, and everyday culture have accumulated.
The ordinary concept of a place name is insufficient to explain how accumulated memory and lived experience operate within such a poetic place.
Ulteomal is therefore established as an official Korea Haiku concept for explaining the process by which a particular place, when joined with personal and communal memory, historical events, and recurring lived experience, acquires a distinctive poetic meaning.
The concept provides a theoretical foundation for preserving Korean locality and place-memory in literature and for interpreting natural landscapes, urban spaces, markets, stations, rivers, ports, and villages as living poetic places.

Ulteomal was formulated to explain how places appearing in Korea Haiku works can possess meanings beyond those of ordinary geographical names.
The Korean word ulteo refers to the ground or dwelling-place where people live, a life-space enclosed by human existence and inhabited by memory. Ulteomal therefore signifies a word that carries the emotions and memories of a place in which people have lived.
Within the conceptual structure of Korea Haiku, which consists of the four axes of time, scene, place, and memory and transmission, Gyejeolmal represents the axis of time, Gyeotmal the axis of scene, Ulteomal the axis of place, and Deotjitgi the axis of memory and transmission.
Places such as Busan Station, the Nakdong River, Haeundae, Jagalchi Market, the Taehwa River, Bongpyeong, Jeju oreum, Jangsaengpo in Ulsan, and Dongnae Market do not automatically become Ulteomal merely by being named. They function as Ulteomal when they are connected with human memories, historical events, regional everyday culture, and recurring experience and thereby acquire a distinctive meaning within a poem.
The term was proposed by KIM SUSEONG and submitted by An SooHyun. It is established as an official Korea Haiku concept following review by the Terminology Establishment and Review Committee.

Ulteomal has been used in the creation, education, criticism, and study of Korea Haiku to explain concrete place-consciousness and the memories, emotions, history, and lived experiences accumulated in the places appearing in a poem.
Its official definition, meaning of the name, functions, examples, and principles of application were systematized in the Korea Haiku Federation publication Official Glossary of Core Concepts in Korea Haiku, where Ulteomal is identified as the axis of place among the four concepts of Gyejeolmal, Gyeotmal, Ulteomal, and Deotjitgi.

Ulteomal has the following principal functions:
First, it gives a poem a concrete sense of place.
Second, it connects individual memory with communal memory.
Third, it reveals Korean locality and everyday culture.
Fourth, it transforms natural landscapes and urban spaces into poetic places.
Fifth, it broadens the historical and social background of a work.

Representative candidates include:
Busan Station, the Nakdong River, Haeundae, Jagalchi Market, the Taehwa River, Bongpyeong, Jeju oreum, Jangsaengpo in Ulsan, and Dongnae Market.
These names function as Ulteomal only when they are connected with individual or communal memory, everyday culture, historical events, or recurring experience.

An example presented in the official glossary is:

Busan Station square
A rain-soaked travel bag
One camellia blossom

In this poem, Busan Station may function as an Ulteomal when it evokes memories of travel, separation and return, urban life, and lived experience rather than serving merely as the name of a transportation facility.

1. Ulteomal should be used to evoke personal and communal memories, emotions, history, and lived experiences accumulated in a particular place.
2. The appearance of a place name in a poem does not automatically make it an Ulteomal.
3. A place name used merely as geographical information, an address, a tourist destination, or a descriptive location should not be regarded as an Ulteomal.
4. An Ulteomal should be connected with objects, sounds, human movement, and traces of everyday life actually observed in the place.
5. A place term functions as an Ulteomal when it is joined with historical events, local everyday culture, and recurring personal or communal experiences and thereby acquires a distinctive meaning within the poem.
6. The same place name may function as a mere location in one work and as an Ulteomal in another, depending on the poetic context.
7. When a place word mainly concretizes the spatial scene surrounding a Gyejeolmal, it may be explained as a Gyeotmal. When accumulated memory, history, and communal meaning become central, it should be identified as an Ulteomal.
8. When a place inherited from an earlier work, legend, historical record, or cultural memory is recreated from a contemporary perspective, Ulteomal may operate together with Deotjitgi.
9. Ulteomal may apply not only to natural landscapes but also to stations, markets, ports, factories, schools, alleys, urban spaces, and other sites of everyday life.
10. The official Korean spelling is 울터말, written as a single word.
11. In English-language materials, Ulteomal should be used as the primary name in order to preserve the distinctive Korea Haiku concept. Place-Memory Word may be added as an explanatory translation.

When Ulteomal is used as an official Korea Haiku concept, or when its definition, the meaning of its name, functions, examples, distinction from an ordinary place name, or principles of application are cited or used in academic articles, books, lectures, educational materials, media reports, online publications, or digital content, users are encouraged to identify the relevant official record and document number in Malmaru 말마루, operated by the Korea Haiku Federation.
Ulteomal should not be represented merely as an ordinary place name, regional word, or tourist destination.
The proposer, submitter, reviewing body, approving institution, and proclaiming institution should not be omitted or inaccurately represented.

Recommended citation:
Korea Haiku Federation. “Official Terminology Record of Ulteomal.” Malmaru 말마루: Official Terminology, Declarations & Historical Records. Document No. KHF-MALMARU-YEAR-NUMBER, proclamation date.

Proposed by: KIM SUSEONG
Submitted by: An SooHyun
Reviewed by: Terminology Establishment and Review Committee
Approved by: Korea Haiku Federation
Proclaimed by: Korea Haiku Federation