Status Updates From Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcrea...

"...Only then language emerges into silence, to volunteer. Language comes out, dancing."

"Kim: So I am not particularly fond of poems in which the 'me' speaks prominently. I dislike hearing a poem even from a poet who evokes immense imagination when 'me' is the one who is speaking. Ultimately, I think the issue is the 'death' of 'me.' If you kill 'me' the contours of sensation get etched automatically. Perhaps I could explain it in this way: that the method involves speaking, without speaking."

"...We handled the pigs not very differently from the way the bodies of the people of this country were handled during the dictatorship."

"Appendix: As you know, last year, three million pigs were buried due to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in our country. And countless numbers of cows were also buried. Almost all of the cows and pigs in South Korea went into the ground. Their pink bodies, whether they were diseased or about to be diseased, were difficult to dispose of, so they were buried alive."

"Shin: For someone who has stepped into your world of poetry for the first time, especially readers abroad, would you please share several key words for your poetry?
Kim: Death, Woman, [South] Korea, You, Seoul, Absence, Illness, Rats, Poetry"

"Kim: ...But lately, I think about living out the rest of my life laughing meaninglessly a rhythmical laugh."

"Appendix: And so each poem can only be spoken in a particular way, while striving first for the impossible communication with the other, rather than communication with the reader."

"Appendix: ...unless my body, the material for ignition, is in a poetic state, it is pointless. I am colored by the poetic state like some kind of bodily sign. As if I'm about to cry, as if my laughter is about to explode in giggles, I need to overlap with a blank paper-think girl. And while I write, the girl becomes a witch of grandmother, but first I need to be in that state."

"...When I was writing To Write as a Woman, I wanted to say that the ignition point of a genre called poetry is a 'feminine position.' I wanted to say, regardless of a poet's gender, poetry is where night is, where absence is, poetry begins where mother is (who has lost herself to me), it's where I 'do poetry.'"

"Appendix: Not only 'woman' became blurry, but also 'me'--this blurry state of being is poetry. My poetry tells me to bring the life-giving water that will save father's life as the songs of a woman heading to the afterworld, my poetry tells me to become a ghost."

"Appendix: As I began writing poetry, I often felt as if my tongue were paralyzed. I had no role model for poetry. [...] Therefore, I thought to myself that I needed to reinvent my mother tongue. I decided to explore in my own voice the possibilities of the sensory; I decided to believe in my own feminine individuation, its secrets."

"Appendix: In Korean mythology, women disappear after they give birth to their sons. They never appear again. The ultimate goal of their existence is to give birth to sons."

"Appendix: The Korean male literary establishment differentiates and categorizes poetry that women write as 'Women's Poetry.' However, I think that Korean women's poetry is now engaged in 'doing' poetry more than ever before. ('Doing' poetry is a term I have coined to express that women 'live' and 'do' poetry rather than write poetry, 'performing' inside and outside of poetry.)"

"On Pig's back a sack of me, cloud-like / carrying the fickle shadow, jockey-like"

"Dear Song, Please stay stuck to my body for 12 hours"

"The woman carrying in each hand a bag of pig hearts / keeps walking and mumbling the same story / One drop two drops of urine-like rain are falling"

"that we washed our outer body with water daily / and washed our inner body with blood / Dirt collects between our toes / and a box sealed up by sleep gives off a stench"

"We return as hot pigs / We return for our final act / The act in which our fingers rot even before we lie down in our coffins"

"What can I do with this animal that stinks when it skips a bath for just one day? / What can I do with this pig that squeals oink-oink when it's not fed for just one day?"

"This time, the new moon mutilates your insides as it passes through / There is nothing in the world that you can't digest but / qq qqq the western sky turns crimson as you digest the knife-blade"

"Mommy pig snaps-snaps off each nipple to boil up a dumpling soup / yet the ninth pig dies / Why does the prettiest thing in the world have to leave first? / Why does the worst smell in the world have to leave last?"

"I am someone who cooks at home / I place a knife on the cutting board and cover my eyes / I pray for the dead, for their bliss / My turn to be eaten has arrived"

"When the smell of coffee mushrooms in my mouth an unknown face / strides-strides into me toting an unknown weapon"