Kim Hyesoon Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

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

  Kim Hyesoon

  Writing, Tongue, Firsts

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

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

  Kim Hyesoon

  Energy, Body, Wave

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Thinking, Language, Motherly

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Crazy, Kids, Filling Up

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Korea, Feminism, Culture

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Thinking, Korea, Female

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Crazy, Writing, Kids

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

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

  Kim Hyesoon

  Feminism, Trends, Culture

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Hair, Government, Korea

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Girl, Korea, World

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

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

  Kim Hyesoon

  Men, Political, Roles

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Sun, Robbing, Crude

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Girl, Hands, Years

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Hair, Government, Long

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

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

  Kim Hyesoon

  Son, Giving, Korean

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Farewell, Voice, Role Models

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Criticism, World, Serious

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Real, Voice, Might

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Writing, Kind, Abandonment

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Thinking, Female, Body

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Men, Thinking, Sorrow

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Korea, People, Political

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Writing, Thinking, University Students

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Country, Past, Korea

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Mother, Water, Identity

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

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