Pyongyang, December 15 (KCNA) -- A bust of Ri Chan, a revolutionary poet, was erected at the Hamnam Ilbo Wednesday.

Ri Chan was born in Pukchong County before liberation of the country. After graduating from a secondary school he worked as a poet and a member of the Korea Artista Proleta Federation.

He vigorously conducted progressive literary activities by creating lyric poems in praise of the might of the anti-Japanese armed struggle led by President Kim Il Sung and the people who turned out in the struggle against the Japanese imperialists' colonial rule.

After the liberation of Korea he displayed his creative talent to the full. When he was received by Kim Il Sung in April 1946 he recited ode "A Song in Praise of General Kim Il Sung" with deep emotion to move the people in the presence.

Later he wrote many words of songs and poems in praise of the leader such as "Song of General Kim Il Sung", an immortal revolutionary hymn reflecting all Koreans' boundless reverence and thus encouraged their struggle and made signal contribution to the development of literature.

Under the care of the Workers' Party of Korea he enjoyed a worthwhile life as an official of the people's power body, editor-in-chief of Hamnam Ilbo and vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the General Federation of Unions of Art and Literature of Korea.

General Secretary Kim Jong Il put forward Ri Chan as a revolutionary poet who created many poems excellent in ideological and artistic value and saw to it that his bust was built.