Kim Hyesoon Books & Quotes

“As a sick kid, I always looked out the window. The objects of my observation were the sun, the seasons, the wind, crazy people, and my grandfather's death. During my long period of observation, I felt that something like poems were filling up my body.”

People Long Body Kids Felt Sun Crazy Objects Wind Periods Window Seasons Sick Observation Grandfather Filling My Grandfather Crazy People Filling Up Sick Kids

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“As a university student, I tried hard to write poems in Korean. It was at that time that I foresaw my death and the world's death. I think my poems started at that time.”

Thinking World Writing Hard Students University Korean University Students

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“If you happen to live in Korea, you might always suffer from anger towards people in power, because of political and social problems. I felt gloomy under this social dictatorship. Looking back, I feel like I never saw a sunrise in Seoul.”

People Ifs Feels Problem Might Happens Political Suffering Social Felt Saws Dictatorship Looking Back Sunrise Korea Gloomy Social Problems

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“When I was at university, the policemen used to measure how short the women's mini-skirts were and how long guys' hair was. We were living under a government that considers people to be soldiers.”

People Long Government Used Guy Hair University Soldier Policemen Skirts

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Living in South Korea as a girl meant living under a lot of discrimination and limitation. It was the same in my university and in the Korean literary world I am involved in.”

World Girl Involved South University Discrimination Limitation Korea Korean South Korea

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Women are foils to men in South Korea. It is hard for women to take a lead role even in NGOs for political resistance. Men think women should do trivial things on the margins. They think women should be merely a seasoning for a dish. I feel anger and sorrow seeing this.”

Thinking Men Feels Should Hard Political Roles Seeing Sorrow South Resistance Dishes Korea Margins South Korea Foils Seasoning Trivial Things

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“When anger and sorrow overflow, sometimes it becomes poetry.”

Sometimes Sorrow Overflow

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“I have to reach "the poetry condition" to write. Then it is as if the border around me is thinned or blurred or erased or disappeared or dead.”

Ifs Writing Conditions Borders

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Women who have been disappeared by violence are howling. The voices of disappeared women are echoing. I sing with these voices.”

Has Beens Voice Violence

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“When I first started to write poetry, I used to feel as if my tongue would go numb.”

Ifs Feels Writing Firsts Used Tongue Numb

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Women in Korean myths disappear after giving birth. The reason they were born is to produce sons.”

Giving Reason Born Produce Son Birth Myth Disappear Korean Giving Birth

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“I did not have any role model. I could not learn anything from the female voice that male poets used, a voice which is more "feminine" than female. Nor could I learn anything from ancient female poetry that only sang about love, the feeling of farewell and longing for others.”

Feelings Used Voice Roles Poet Models Female Longing Males Ancient Feminine Role Models Farewell Female Voice

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“When I became a poet, the Korean literary world expected women poets to sing passively of love. Naturally, this was not written anywhere, but this rule existed nonetheless. Consequently, I received plenty of serious criticism.”

World Written Serious Poet Criticism Expected Plenty Korean

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“My tough and grotesque images were thrown on the roads and were stepped on by my critics, and I was talked about with scorn. I felt regret that readers only seemed to like something they were accustomed to.”

Felt Regret Reader Tough Critics Thrown Accustomed Scorn Like Something Grotesque

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Speaking as an outsider is the most authentic voice for a poet. Poets who have one hundred thousand or one million readers [as many South Korean poets do] might not be a real, authentic poet.”

Real Might Voice Millions Poet Reader Thousand Hundred South Outsiders Korean

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Poetry is something that disturbs the mainstream with minor things and it is something that breaks down active discrimination with passive things, and it can break down something that polishes the filthy things with filthy things.”

Break Active Discrimination Poetry Is Mainstream Passive Minors Breaking Down Polish Filthy Minor Things

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“It is difficult to disturb the common usage of Korean that is bent to the perspective of a male-oriented society. Korean society is based on both a politics and history that have been disguised as a solid society of solid male poems, a solid written language, fixed rules of how to write literature, and a narrative language.”

Writing Has Beens Literature Language Difficult Common Written Perspective Males Narrative Fixed Bent Korean Usage Written Language

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“We carve on our body what society teaches us and continue this task, not knowing the identity they force us to have. This identity is carved on our faces and our skins. Not knowing our bodies have become "the paper made of human meat," we stuff our bodies and make them a theater where cultural symbols or suppressed symbols play.”

Humans Made Play Body Faces Force Stuff Teach Knowing Identity Paper Tasks Skins Theater Symbols Meat Not Knowing

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“I came to grotesque language in the patriarchal culture under the dictatorship. The body that was broken into pieces is a sick body. I put the disease of this world and my sick body together.”

World Body Together Culture Language Pieces This World Broken Disease Sick Dictatorship Grotesque

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“The grotesque in my poems is the motion I use to put myself and the grotesque world together. So the miserable images I use in my poems are the same as the letters I send into the miserable world.”

World Use Together Letters Miserable Grotesque

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“In my opinion, poets talk through the symptoms of disease. These symptoms of disease are predictions, screams, and songs.”

Song Opinion Poet Disease Scream Predictions Symptoms

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“The body of poetry is nothing but energy, waves, rhythm.”

Body Energy Wave Rhythm Poetry Is

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“We have certain rules for traditional lyric poetry in Korea. I twist my body, confused by what to say and how to act, facing these rules. Confronting traditional lyricism, I speak with a bare body without the tattoos of culture on it.”

Body Certain Culture Speak Traditional Confused Tattoo Twists Korea Confronting Lyric Poetry

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“There is a specific kind of day when I feel like writing poems. My senses become really sharp. This day is when I feel as if I am drowning into the abandonment of death.”

Ifs Feels Writing Kind Senses This Day Drowning Abandonment Writing Poems

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“The rhythm of my body is the same as my mother tongue. It is in this rhythm where I find sanctity, that I can return to my mother who is everywhere in the universe.”

I Can Body Mother Universe Return Tongue Rhythm Sanctity Mother Tongue

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“In poetry, rhythm is a priority above everything else.”

Priorities Rhythm

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Poems are a dance of language that comes out when my body taps into the rhythm of language. Rhythm gets us naked and exposes our selves completely.”

Self Body Language Naked Rhythm

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Alienation between the content and form happens frequently in my poems because I obstinately carry on dismantling my body, an act you can also call "dismantling delusion." I think that after I dismantle my female body, I can finally dismantle established lyric poems.”

Thinking I Can Body Happens Form Female Delusion Alienation Female Body

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Poems are ways of saying you clearly remember the day of your death and your tomb. When I am writing poetry, I relive my days when a woman inside me dies many times.”

Way Writing Remember Dies Tombs Writing Poetry

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“My body is full of graves. A sepulcher is dug up, and a young girl comes out of it with her dusty hands in tears. A lady who is a young girl and an old girl at the same time feels the presence of the young girl. I feel that the 15-year-old me and the 50-year-old me come out of the sepulcher through an illegal excavation.”

Feels Years Body Hands Young Girl Tears Graves Illegal

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“I am a tomb robber who is robbing my own tomb. Things from my tomb are exhibited under the radiant sun. Every time it happens I feel crude.”

Feels Happens My Own Sun Tombs Crude Radiant Robbers Robbing

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Since the boundary of the world of poetry is fluid, the language in it is also fluid. Hence, the language that is outside of the poetry world, namely the language that is not the language of poetry, cannot go into the poetry world.”

World Language Boundaries Poetry Is Fluid

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“The language of poetry is not stuck in place. Nothing can own language. I think, however, the genre of poetry itself is very feminine and motherly.”

Thinking Language Stuck Genre Poetry Is Feminine Motherly

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Once, I compared poetry to mothers in my book called To Write as a Woman, because my mother is someone who captures me in her body and gave birth to me out of her desire but washed her hands of me after giving birth to me as a poet.”

Giving Writing Book Body Hands Mother Desire Poet Birth Capture Giving Birth

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“My mom does not exist anymore, and I cannot see my mother in myself. To me, the word "mother" is the synonym for the words "parting" or "separation" or "farewell."”

Doe Mother Mom My Mom Separation Farewell Parting Synonym

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Mother is a synonym for abandonment and death. Comparing this synonym to water, it is like poured-out water. I call it mother, the identity that I cannot identify.”

Mother Water Identity Compare Abandonment Synonym

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Mother does not exist, like water that has given life to a flower and then disappeared. Mothers live somewhere after giving birth to us.”

Giving Doe Mother Given Water Flower Birth Giving Birth Given Life

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Our mothers who have gone are buried in our bodies. It can be said that we were born with dead mothers in our body.”

Said Body Mother Born Gone Buried Dead Mother

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Korean feminism is on the brink of death. Korea has a less clear boundary between popular literature and serious literature than in other countries. I feel that feminism is abandoned like a product that was a craze in the past.”

Feels Country Past Literature Clear Feminism Serious Products Boundaries Abandoned Other Countries Korea Korean Craze Popular Literature

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Korean feminism has been swept away by popular culture. It became a sort of old-fashioned trend or a joke.”

Has Beens Culture Feminism Jokes Trends Old Fashioned Korean Popular Culture Swept Away

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“If you propose there is a feminism problem in Korea, somebody would point out that you are bringing up antiquated issues. No one acknowledges that discrimination against women is still widespread.”

Ifs Stills Problem Issues Feminism Discrimination Acknowledge Korea Propose

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“It seems Korean women are enjoying a passive and fragile status, intoxicated by appearance. Not only feminism, but any serious discourse ends up being swept away by popular culture in Korea.”

Ends Seems Culture Enjoy Feminism Serious Appearance Fragile Passive Discourse Korea Korean Popular Culture Intoxicated Swept Away

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“South Korea is one of the worst countries when it comes to opportunity for women in social activities and employment. To my disgust, in certain communities in Korea, you cannot even imagine how severe sex discrimination is.”

Country Certain Opportunity Social Sex Community Imagine Worst Activity South Discrimination Employment Disgusting Severe Korea South Korea Sex Discrimination

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“You cannot call a poem female just because it is written by a woman. Nevertheless, I think attempts to find femininity in female bodies, life, and thinking, attempts to find a way for women to speak, will improve widely in Korea.”

Thinking Way Body Speak Written Female Nevertheless Femininity Korea Female Body

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“In Korea, a woman must first obey her father, then her husband when she becomes an ajuma, and finally obey her son as a halmoni. Any woman who violates or lives outside of these roles is called a ch'angyŏ (prostitute).”

Firsts Father Roles Son Husband Korea

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“If someone asks, Is anyone alive? Break, your, head, open, and, show, your, ten, ta, cle.”

Ifs Shows Asks Break Alive Ten

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“As a sick kid, I always looked out the window. The objects of my observation were the sun, the seasons, the wind, crazy people, and my grandfather's death. During my long period of observation, I felt that something like poems were filling up my body. They were in some kind of state and condition that made them difficult to render into words. As a university student, I tried hard to write them in Korean. It was at that time that I foresaw my death and the world's death. I think my poems started at that time.”

“If you happen to live in Korea, you might always suffer from anger towards people in power, because of political and social problems. I felt gloomy under this social dictatorship. Looking back, I feel like I never saw a sunrise in Seoul. When I was at university, the policemen used to measure how short the women's mini-skirts were and how long guys' hair was. We were living under a government that considers her people to be soldiers.”

“Living in Korea as a girl meant living under a lot of discrimination and limitation. It was the same in my university and in the Korean literary world I am involved in now.”

World Girl Involved University Discrimination Limitation Korea Korean

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“Women are foils to men. It is hard for women to take a lead role even in NGOs for political resistance.”

Men Hard Political Roles Resistance Foils

Author:Kim Hyesoon

Kim Hyesoon Books

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