Lady No: Experimental Korean Poetry and Feminist Essays from the Radical Blog That Witnessed National Tragedy

by Kim Hyesoon, Jack Saebyok Jung (Translator)

In March 2014, Kim Hyesoon, the grand dame of contemporary Korean poetry, began to post anonymously on the online blog of Munhakdongne, a major South Korean publisher. Rather than use her own name, Kim Hyesoon’s chosen persona for these blog posts was Lady No. Fittingly, Lady No’s writings are dissenting, combative, subversive, and ontologically feminine; formally, they defy any attempt at easy categorization. They are neither poems, nor are they prose, but a radical innovation Kim calls shisanmun—an ungovernable style that heralds her internationally acclaimed works Autobiography of Death and Phantom Pain Wings.

The entries in this seminal collection, arranged chronologically and in their entirety here for the first time, are an eclectic hybrid of opinion editorials, aphorisms, recipes, daydreams, travelogues, art criticism, as well as treatises on the metaphysics of poetry and the current state of international literature. They take place in and around the world but most often they return to a country called Aerok, a frightening yet familiar mirror of contemporary Korea. First unwittingly, and then with concentrated grief, they chart the course of one of the most politically significant years in recent South Korean history: the sinking of the MV Sewol on the morning of April 16th that killed 304 people, including 250 high school students, and the reverberations of this national tragedy that culminated in the impeachment and ouster of the country’s then-sitting president. Taken together, these writings bear witness to the people’s shame, mourning, and perseverance under a corrupt administration—a painful public reckoning not dissimilar from our own.

Surreal but visceral, and inflected with both humor and rage, Lady No contains perhaps the most accessible of Kim Hyesoon’s writing to date and documents her first and only work of digital performance art. Totaling 179 individual entries and featuring 34 drawings by the artist Fi Jae Li, Lady No explores the inner and outer lives of contemporary Korean women and embodies the inextricable link between social justice and literary citizenship.

Genres: Poetry

368 pages, Hardcover

Published April 14, 2026

About the author

Born in Ulijin, South Korea, Kim Hyesoon (1955-) received her PhD in Korean Literature from Konkuk University, and began as a poet in 1979 with the publication of Poet Smoking a Cigarette. She began to receive critical acclaim in the late 1990s and she attributes this to the strong wave of interest in poetry by woman poets; currently she is one of South Korea’s most important contemporary poets, and she now lives and teaches in Seoul. Her poetry aims to strive for a freedom from form, by experimenting with language focusing on the sensual - often female - body, in direct opposition to male-dominated lyrical poetry. ‘They are direct, deliberately grotesque, theatrical, unsettling, excessive, visceral and somatic. This is feminist surrealism loaded with shifting, playful linguistics that both defile and defy traditional roles for women.’

Having published more than ten poetry collections, a number of these have been translated into English recently: When the Plug Gets Unplugged (2005); Mommy Must be a Fountain of Feathers (2008); All the Garbage of the World, Unite! (2011); Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream (2014) and I’m O.K., I’m Pig (2014). Tinfish has also published a small chapbook of three essays entitled Princess Abandoned (2012).

Throughout her career she has gained nearly all of South Korea’s most prestigious literary awards, named after the country’s greatest poets, such as Kim Su-yông Literature Award (1997), the Sowol Poetry Literature Award (2000) and the Midang Literature Award (2006). She was also the first female to win the Daesan Literary Award in 2008.

Reviews

[Mai H.]

Manse March TBR

National Poetry Month TBR

Women in Translation TBR

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco

[Bella Azam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lady No by Kim Hyesoon explores on the themes of political tension in Aerok, a city that bears similarities to the modern contemporary South Korea with many historical & demonstration events were highlighted in this collection such as the tragic Sewol sinking ship in 2014, the student protests against dictatorship, the impeachment of the president due to power corruption. These events were written in Kim Hyesoon's evident charming style of narrative, shisanmun or poetry prose or po-prose "minus poetry, minus prose". Her writing style challenges the language strructures of storytelling, a radical innovation borne out of her ways of expressing these stories straddles the line of absurdity and realism.

The book documented her writings that she created on a blogpost where her persona Lady No was used instesd of her real name, the seminal works were collected chronologically shown the passage of time of the happening events throughout the time. Its a diverse body of work, on essays, opinion editorials, proses, poetry, travelogues, art criticism etc, combined with the uniquely bizarre drawings by Fi Jae Lee served a visceral stories.

While I appreciated the themes that were brought up through the voices of Lady No on social injustices, oppression of rights and freedoms as censorship was heavily implemented back in the politically unrest era, misogyny pervading the society, patriarchal governance on family and culture, the grief and sorrowful mourning of losses due to tragedy of Sewol ship, a rapid urbanisation & development progress far too quickly of the growing Aerok yet it had hurt the society collectively on the deeper level, I am not gonna say thay I understand most of them. Some of the poetry prose just went over my head since I'm lacking in comprehension and understanding when it comes to poetry. However, the longer forms of essays/travelogues are the ones that I easily enjoyed the most. If you are looking for a unique reads, this may interest you but do know its a tough one to digest

Thank you Times Reads for the review copy

[Ashley : bostieslovebooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks Ecco for the gifted ARC book.

As a collection of anonymous blog entries titled here ‘Lady No,’ Hyesoon’s digital performance art straddles the line between poetry and prose without solidly being either, witnessing and exploring South Korean history during the time surrounding the sinking of the MV Sewol and impeachment of the then president, both in Korea and the fictional mirror country of Aerok. Illustrations by Lee enrich the reading experience.

I am admittedly not versed in Korean history and while that didn’t necessarily detract from my reading enjoyment and appreciation of the experimental forms that shaped the entries, it did impact my comprehension. Certain areas really resonated and I felt confident in interpreting themes such as anti-patriarchy, social justice, and a poet’s existence. I could see a dark playfulness in many entries. Overall, there was a lot that I lacked context for. Emotion was definitely in the writing, but I didn’t always know what it pertained to. That’s on me though. This is a book that I plan to revisit once I have a better background.

Recommended for fans of experimental poetry. Might be better if you know a bit about South Korean history, or just wing it like I did!

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heartbreaking: the best poet you know publishes a book that’s mid at best.

Honestly, there were a few gems in here, but so much was evacuated of the visceral, sensory, unsettledness that makes Kim the writer she is. The craft essays at the beginning and end were good, but the middle? Not impressed. I think that if Don Mee Choi had done the translation again (as she has done beautifully for many of Kim’s other books!!) this would have been way better.

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A full release of a poetry chapbook that was originally released as individual weekly entries in a newspaper over a period of time. Some absolutely amazing, hard hitting poems in here though, and an introduction that gives us context about who this poet is within the South Korean literary scene. This comes out in April, and is a highly recommended preorder from me.

[Amy ☁️ (tinycl0ud) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"For months, I've had a poem taped to the bathroom door and have been reading it. / Every time I read it, the poem points toward another direction, toward another world."
- Escaping

This is a collection of avant-garde poems that were originally posted anonymously on a blog. Actually I'm not even sure what else I can say in my review because the introduction/ translator's note/ epilogue already do such a good job of contextualising the collection and explaining their significance. I think I would have had a different (and more confusing) experience if I skipped the opening sections.

I found interesting the idea of poems that resist easy interpretation being a means of self-protection, to avoid becoming "torn apart" by the reader—is the impulse to "understand fully" a poem a violent one? This contradicts the traditions of analysis; is there a way to analyse poetry without reducing it to shreds? A poem's opaqueness also invites and generates plurality of meaning. It seems to be suggesting a lighter, more intuition-based way of encountering a poem.

This is a multi-layered and textured collection to read slowly, reread multiple times, and return to over the years, to see how the notes vary. My notes on first read:
- the (woman's) body as unknowable
- sounds reserved for certain ears
- the mundane transforming into the horrific
- motif of writing to escape, using language to escape language itself
- what we are taught to want does not even fulfil us in the end
- these days, poetry and fiction have been diluted to serve the algorithmic powers that be
- bureaucracy can be so dehumanising
- so absurd how universities expect educators to make their end goal securing employment for students

Lines that I liked:

"Inside a brain that is like whipped egg white, I am piling up memories that no one crave"
- The Body of a Woman

"See how, standing around a deathbed, / They proverb their proverbs in proverbs / to the one who is dying"
- Proverb Teachers

"No translation was necessary, no English subtitles required. It was the lament of a bird crying from beyond the system we call literature."
- Companion Trunk

"Poetry is the language of one who has fallen beneath one's name . . . Once one has run far away from a name, poetry finally begins"
- The Name of Poetry

"Everyone bleeds inside their heads!"
- The Privilege of Bleeding

"Do not praise worker ants for their diligence; they are slave. / The queen below earth hatches their deaths."
- Last Ounce of Strength

"Can you believe there's a country where subway announcements direct you to funeral halls?"
- Easter

"A poet is someone who lives in a country of afterimages . . . The country of leaving."
- Living in Leaving

"We can't simply judge a poet's work to be womanly poetry written from a woman's perspective only because the poet is a woman. Once you name a poet a woman poet, then manly poetry become the standard, and womanly poetry becomes its provincial other."
- Witch-type Poet

"Like the girls of this generation, Lady No strives to fill her memory bank with idols' music and dance, rather than her own memories."
- When Will We Finish This Practice?

"Lady No thinks that collective effort may have gone into gaslighting mothers. This life of domestic labour, once you fool yourself into it, there is no way out."
- Mothers Despise Doing It Too

"Women keep dreaming two dreams back and forth. / One in which virginhood is lost and the other in which motherhood is lost."
Virginhood and Motherhood

"Mumbling the same words probably bought from vending machines, / They must walk fast. / If they stop walking, it is as if the solar-powered radios / Will whisper to them three hundred ways to die."
Walking in New York

"A teacher is, in the literal sense of these words, the one who lived ahead of you and died and came back. Meaning she is a ghost."
Teacher and Student

"When I read writings about my country's poetry, there are times when it feels like I've eaten a bibimbap of sentences about other countries' poetry . . . Within poetry, the unfolding of ideology, the alibi of survival, the pathetic illusion known as nation, these are all idolatries. There is nothing uglier than the pedestal that the poets enshrine within themselves."
Idolatry Bibimbap

"And happiness is something drawn on the two-dimensional wedding invitation, therefore she will come to realise that a three-dimensional person like a woman can never have it. The paper main characters of doll plays will now be crumbled. / And she will forever collapse into being a Cinderella who prepares the hated table and never gets to wear her glass shoes."
- Wedding March

[Alicia Garcia-Webster · Rating 2 out of 5]

My daughter, when she was three, would sometimes scream for no reason. Her father, her sister, her brother, and I would all look at her with bemusement. "Who screams just for the sake of screaming?", we asked ourselves. Those moments with my youngest child came to mind when I was reading this book. Poem after poem after poem of non-stop screeching, with seemingly no purpose to it. Which isn't to say that it wasn't mildly entertaining at times, or that the arrangement of words wasn't appealing on the page. But it seemed so utterly performative, non unlike the cries of my three-year-old in the aisle of Walmart. All this flailing and railing against something-clearly-, but what? Angst and fury directed at an unrequited this and an unrecognizable that. But when I looked into the dark corner, to which the author was pointing, all I saw were dust bunnies and cobwebs. The bogeyman, who the poet with every fiber of her being, insisted was there, simply failed to materialize. Most of the poetry came across as rebellion simply for the sake of it. There was no clear adversary, just the constant shouting into the wind. Fans of avant garde or modern art might be able to extract something meaningful from this collection of poetry, but I was left unmoved. ** This ARC was provided by the publisher, but all opinions are my own.

[Ally Ang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Ecco & NetGalley for the ARC!
Set in Aerok, a funhouse mirror inversion of Korea, this collection of genrefluid blog posts written from the persona of "Lady No" is expansive in scope. With a collection like this, there's gonna be hits and misses: I found some of these pieces exciting and thought-provoking while others fell flat. Overall, Lady No felt a bit disjointed--which I suppose makes sense given the source material--but it offered some compelling explorations of identity/subjectivity, reflections on gender, and critiques of literature, academia, and nation. I also enjoyed the illustrations and felt they complemented the text well. Unfortunately, Lady No lacked some of the striking, visceral, singular qualities that initially made me fall in love with Kim's work. I'm not sure if that was a matter of the translation or the conceit of the project; regardless, I'm glad that this book exists as an entry into the English-language Kim Hyesoon canon.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lady No is a bold, genre-defying collection that feels as much like an experience as it does a book. Written as a series of anonymous blog entries, the work blends poetry, essays, fragments, and surreal reflections into something entirely its own—raw, restless, and impossible to neatly categorize. Kim Hyesoon’s voice is sharp and unflinching, weaving together personal, political, and cultural threads while capturing the emotional weight of a turbulent moment in contemporary Korean history.

What makes this collection so compelling is its intensity—equal parts haunting, strange, and fiercely alive. Beneath the experimental form is a powerful exploration of grief, femininity, and resistance, all delivered with flashes of dark humor and visceral imagery. Lady No is challenging in the best way: a striking, thought-provoking read that lingers long after you’ve put it down.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy via Goodreads giveaway. This was an interesting read especially as I am working on exploring poetry more. I’m grateful I got the chance to read this and I really enjoyed the illustrations interspersed throughout the book, very visually engaging and paired nicely with the writing. I still need to learn more about Korean history, but this book made me want to learn and gather context to fully appreciate it and what it references. This collection explores a range of emotions and themes that you should take your time with because there’s so much here. Definitely worth a read.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

The entries in this book are varied, but good. I found myself a little unsure about how I was feeling about the overall flow. There is something about the writing that pulls you in. I am pretty ignorant of a lot of Korean history, so this had me interested in researching alongside reading. Overall, I'm grateful I got the chance to read this early.

[JXR · Rating 5 out of 5]

gorgeous, fun set of poems with some impeccable vibes and great themes to it. 5 stars. tysm for the E-ARC.

[Marty Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think with a different background this book would have clicked more for me, but overall it was a well organized book and you could tell the author poured passion into the work.

[Davi Kladakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing emotional experience. I loved this book of poetry. 📚♥️♥️

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to the publisher Ecco for this advanced reading copy. This was a refreshing book of poetry. I liked that it was translated from Korean. Unique poetry that I’ve never read before.

[Nicole Perkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and Ecco for the review copy of Kim Hyesoon's thought-provoking collection "Lady No."

I have never read Kim Hyesoon's work before. Her writing brings to mind the style of Margaret Atwood and Alice Notley. Kim's writing is fierce and direct. It forces you to pause and reread to fully understand the depth of her words. She meditates on poetry as a guide: "[...] For months, I've had a poem taped to the bathroom door and have been reading it. / Every time I read it, the poem points toward another direction, toward another world."

Kim calls out the commercialization of literature and how it is being twisted to be "useful;" how people are forgetting that literature exists for the soul, not for the sake of digital medial producers. Reflecting on this, Kim says poetry "might as well be classified as an Intangible Cultural Heritage." Should poetry disappear, what remains will be "legends of poets and rumors in the wind about poetry...solipsistic essays, bellows, and modicums of behavior...sentimentalism and poses..." She reminds readers that "Poetry goes beyond a 'name,' beyond identity..."

Kim uses poetry to call attention to the ills of society. "Document Human" is all too relevant in the United States at present; "By the River Ouse" recalls Virginia Woolf's battle with mental illness, and "Princesses in Formaldehyde" asks a question women the world over are forced to ask again and again: "Why do they hate women...?"

Kim Hyesoon's work leaves its mark in the mind. You will find yourself coming back to it, reconsidering what you thought she meant, wondering what it means to you, what it means to be you. Kim's work makes you consider what it means to be human.