Women who have been disappeared by violence are howling. The voices of disappeared women are echoing. I sing with these voices.
Kim HyesoonYou 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 HyesoonIt is difficult to disturb the common usage of Korean that is bent to the perspective of a male-oriented society. Korean society is based on both a politics and history that have been disguised as a solid society of solid male poems, a solid written language, fixed rules of how to write literature, and a narrative language.
Kim HyesoonMother does not exist, like water that has given life to a flower and then disappeared. Mothers live somewhere after giving birth to us.
Kim HyesoonIf 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