Kim Hyesoon



‘Energy is Art’s force’: Dan Disney in Conversation with Joyelle McSweeney

‘In a station of the vortex pick me up and hurl me’ writes Joyelle McSweeney in the poem ‘Oocyte’, appearing in their celebrated collection Toxicon and Arachne (Nightboat Books, 2020). In this heady exchange of ideas, the author of ten books (poetry, fiction, drama, non-fiction, translation) reveals a formidable erudition swirls through the heartlands of their elemental writing.

Posted in INTERVIEWS | Tagged , , ,

Sublime Necrophilia or Ceasing To Exist in Order to Be : On Translating Kim Kyung Ju’s I Am a Season that Does Not Exist in the World

Like the male dusky antechinus, an Australian marsupial, translation has an unusually long mating period. For 14 hours it fucks so vigorously that its stress hormones overload, causing its immune system to collapse. It performs the sexy death. A lethal transfer of life. Or is it a deathy sex?

Posted in ESSAYS | Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Four Poems from Kim Hyesoon’s ‘Autobiography of Death’

Kim Hyesoon is one of the most prominent poets of South Korea. She lives in Seoul and teaches creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts. Her most recent books in translation are Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream (Action Books, 2014) and I’m OK, I’m Pig (Bloodaxe Books, 2014).

Posted in TRANSLATIONS | Tagged ,

첫 (First)

내가 세상에서 가장 질투하는 것, 당신의 첫,   당신이 세상에서 가장 질투하는 것, 그건 내가 모르지.   당신의 잠든 얼굴 속에서 슬며시 스며 나오는 당신의 첫.   당신이 여기 올 때 거기에서 가져온 것.   나는 당신의 첫을 끊어버리고 싶어. …

Posted in 45: OZ-KO (HANGUK-HOJU) | Tagged ,

서울 코라 (Seoul, Kora*)

山이 컹컹 짖다가  山이 나를 따라온다     山이 새끼를 낳는다   山이 산을 핧는다   山이 새끼들에게 젖을 물린다   山이 매정하게 새끼들을 다 버린다   어린 山들이 백주 대낮에 교미한다, 악취가 난다   山이 미로 속의 개떼처럼 몰려다닌다 …

Posted in 45: OZ-KO (HANGUK-HOJU) | Tagged ,

Joel Scott Reviews Kim Hyesoon and Don Mee Choi

It is refreshing to be introduced to a literature through its contemporary women poets. For that reason, I was extremely happy to receive these two titles, both published by Action Books (a small U.S. publisher doing great things). Neither book, though, is entirely Korean.

Posted in BOOK REVIEWS | Tagged , , , ,