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. — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
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… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
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… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
Alienation between the content and form happens frequently in my poems because I obstinately carry on dismantling my body, an act you can also… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
Once, I compared poetry to mothers in my book called To Write as a Woman, because my mother is someone who captures me in… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
Korean feminism is on the brink of death. Korea has a less clear boundary between popular literature and serious literature than in other countries.… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
We have certain rules for traditional lyric poetry in Korea. I twist my body, confused by what to say and how to act, facing… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
Men think women should do trivial things on the margins. They think women should be merely a seasoning for a dish. I feel anger… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
In Korea, a woman must first obey her father, then her husband when she becomes an ajuma, and finally obey her son as a… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
Women are foils to men in South Korea. It is hard for women to take a lead role even in NGOs for political resistance.… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
When I became a poet, the Korean literary world expected women poets to sing passively of love. Naturally, this was not written anywhere, but… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
South Korea is one of the worst countries when it comes to opportunity for women in social activities and employment. To my disgust, in… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
The grotesque in my poems is the motion I use to put myself and the grotesque world together. So the miserable images I use… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
You cannot call a poem female just because it is written by a woman. Nevertheless, I think attempts to find femininity in female bodies,… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
Poems are a dance of language that comes out when my body taps into the rhythm of language. Rhythm gets us naked and exposes… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
Living in Korea as a girl meant living under a lot of discrimination and limitation. It was the same in my university and in… — Kim Hyesoon Copy Share Image
