Kim Seonu (, born 1970) is a South Korean

feminist poet This is a list of feminist poets. Historically, literature has been a male-dominated sphere, and any poetry written by a woman could be seen as feminist. Often, feminist poetry refers to that which was composed after the 1960s and the second wave ...

Life

Kim Seonu was born in 1970 in

Gangneung Gangneung (; ) is a list of cities in South Korea, municipal city in Gangwon, South Korea, Gangwon province, on the east coast of South Korea. It has a population of 213,658 (as of 2017).Gangneung City (2003)Population & Households. Retrieved Ja ...

, South Korea, and is considered part of the new "feminist" wave of

Korean poetry Korean poetry is poetry performed or written in the Korean language or by Korean people. Traditional Korean poetry is often sung in performance. Until the 20th century, much of Korean poetry was written in Hanja. History The performance of oral ...

. Kim is also known internationally, having been a poet-in-residence at the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation at

Victoria University, Wellington Victoria University of Wellington (), also known by its shorter names "VUW" or "Vic", is a public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University ...

, in September and October 2013.

Career

According to the poet Na Huideok, Kim Seonu's poetry is filled with "bashful yet intense sensuality reminiscent of moist flower petals," and "her femininity emanates ..abundance as that of embryonic fluid." The women in her poetry are "embryos, mothers and midwives all at once." The image of women as bountiful, life-giving and life-embracing entities dominates her first volume of poetry ''If My Tongue Refuses To Be Locked Up in My Mouth'' (, 2000). The poet's celebration of the female body is often accompanied by her revulsion of male oppression. In the title poem, the poet visualizes the feminine desire for freedom from male oppression in a series of unsettling imageries such as "a skull of a baby hanging from its mother's neck," and "a gush of beheaded camellias." The protagonist is forced to sew strips of new skin onto a monster that grows bigger and bigger. Her attempt to kill him ultimately fails because her "good tongue is obsequiously locked up in his mouth." Her second volume of poetry, ''Sleeping under the Peach Blossoms'' (, 2003), reveals the force of nature in its primeval state through the physicality of women's body and uniquely feminine functions of reproduction. In "A Bald Mountain," it is women's sexuality and sexual desires that find their expression in nature: "cloud children" pucker their lips toward the "bright nipples of flowers," and "the tongue of the wind" passes over the waist of the mountain and lifts up the eulalia seeds while "licking the deep valley." The winter grass bends down to have sex in various positions and the mountain itself is "lying with its legs open towards the shadow.""김선우 " LTI Korea Datasheet: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#

Works

Works in Korean (partial)

* ''If My Tongue Refuses To Be Locked Up in My Mouth'' (, 2000) * ''When the Moon Opens Under the Sea'' (, 2002) * ''Sleeping Under the Peach Blossoms'' (, 2003) * ''Princess Bari'' (, 2003) * ''Kim Seonu's Personal Belongings'' (, 2005) * ''Who Is That Sleeping in My Body?'' (, 2007) * ''Kisses Like Sugar in My Mouth'' (, 2007) * ''Who Was Lying Down on That Rice Platter Alongside Us?'' (, 2007)

Works in translation

* Selected poems in ''The Colors of Dawn: Twentieth Century Korean Poetry'' (

University of Hawaiʻi Press The University of Hawaiʻi Press is a university press that is part of the University of Hawaiʻi. The University of Hawaiʻi Press was founded in 1947, publishing research in all disciplines of the humanities and natural and social sciences ...

, 2015) - ed.

Frank Stewart Francis Eugene Stewart (20 February 192316 April 1979) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and served as Minister for Tourism and Recreation in the Whitlam government from 1973 to 1975. He was a m ...

Brother Anthony Brother Anthony (born 1942) is a translator, scholar, and member of the Taizé Community. He was born Anthony Graham Teague in the United Kingdom but has since become a naturalized citizen of South Korea under the Korean name An Sonjae (). Life ...

, Chung Eun-Gwi * ''If My Tongue Refuses To Remain in My Mouth'' ( Autumn Hill Books, 2018) - translated by Christopher Merrill and Kim Won-Chung

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Seonu 1970 births 20th-century South Korean poets Living people 21st-century South Korean poets South Korean women poets People from Gangneung 20th-century South Korean women writers 20th-century South Korean writers 21st-century South Korean women writers South Korean Buddhists South Korean feminists