Eun Kim’s Reviews > Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream Paperback Poetry. East Asia Studies. Women's Studies. Translated from the Korean > Status Update

"...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."