The Poetry Project

Kim Hyesoon

The photograph is in portrait-orientation. Kim Hyesoon is centered, cropped tightly by the frame of the photograph from the chest up, at the shoulders, and about six inches above her head. She is wearing a bright, clean white shirt that looks like linen; a soft, thin, light white scarf; and round black wire glasses. She is looking directly at the camera. She is holding a magnifying glass in her hand, which is blurred in the near foreground. Behind her are two tan-colored curtains with white space between.
© Jung Melmel

Kim, Hyesoon is one of the most prominent and influential contemporary poets of South Korea. Her poems first appeared in Literature and Intellect (Munhak kwa jiseong), one of the two leading journals that led the intellectual and literary movement against the U.S. backed military dictatorships. Kim came into prominence from the late 1990s and was the first woman poet to receive the prestigious Kim Su-yong and Midang awards. Kim recently received the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize for Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018), the 2021 Cikada Prize, and the Samsung Ho-Am Prize in 2022. Kim’s profile appeared in The New Yorker in which she was quoted saying: “Feminism isn’t something you’re born believing. Feminism is going through life and changing yourself.” Kim’s poems in translation have appeared in various publications such as the Poetry Foundation, The New York Times, The Nation, The European Review, Guernica, and Boston Review. Her poetry has been translated into Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, and Swedish. Kim is a professor emeritus of Seoul Institute of the Arts. She lives in Seoul with her husband Lee, Kang-Baek, a renowned playwright, and her artist daughter Lee, Fi Jae. Kim’s fourteenth book of poetry After Earth Dies, Who Will Moon Orbit? was published last year.