Symptoms by her side―what would they become? Lost in thought, her memory faded within minutes; a burning kettle on the stove went unnoticed. Her eyes would gleam, murderous like a person possessed. As if she were nearing some other state of being.
From“ Poet's Essay”

Readers find poverty reeking under the roof of a cushy, capitalist kingdom. Even these scenes strike me as songs―beautiful melodies like canaries in mines coughing up blood, forceful tunes like blades of grass spearing through asphalt. Only Kim would detect the smell of defeat and silence long suffered by the poor. When she likens the stench of defeat to a“ musty basement room” and the odor of silence to a“ staggered cough,” the figures of speech extend beyond rhetorical flourish, kindling the heartrending pain experienced only when life overlaps with poetry. I would dare to say such poems stand alongside the extremely vulnerable, joining them in singing of the pain endured in this world.
Park Hyungjun (Poet and professor at Dongguk University)