Recipient of the 2025 Arts Council Korea Literature Fellowship
"The poet's dreams are permeated by their lover's warmth, by the memos written by their lover who searched for poetry before the poet wherever they went, I wish the poet's pouch of solitude would bulge like it contained the fist of the sacrificed, I wish the world would be crammed to bursting with poems that don't need to be understood, the letters carved into the air under our noses so they can't be missed." —Excerpt from "The Poet's Lover," in The Person I Will Live As (Changbi, 2015).
Kim Joong il is a poet who employs highly fantastical writing to lay bare realistic sorrows.
1. Life
Poet Kim Joong il was an engineering student who had entered Dankook University’s faculty of engineering in 1996. When he had just come into university, he came across and read poetry collections displayed in the student society room. They were mainly collections of labor poetry, including Park Nohae’s Nodongui saebyeok (노동의 새벽The Dawn of Labor). He was immediately able to understand it because the poetry had almost no metaphorical devices, and was written in an honest, and passionate language. Kim Joong il spent much of his childhood and adolescence near Seoul’s Guro Industrial Complex, and this experience during his youth has had a large influence on his poetry work. In 2002 he began his literary career by winning the Dong-A Daily New Writer’s Contest in poetry. He has since published poetry characterized by a fantastical imagination and style, combined with the political experiences of real life continuing from his childhood.
2. Writing
Kim Joong il has drawn much attention due to his unique poetry where sensual language and fantastic imagery is mixed. In his debut work from 2002 Dong-A Daily New Writer’s Contest, he connected different images to each other, showing his style of expanding a new meaning, as well as showing his will to use such breaks to shockingly reveal the truths of life. Rather than recreating reality, he uses solid metaphors to depict dramatic situations, telling stories that feel fantastic. However, his rich imagination that freely leaps across reality and fantasy, isn’t limited to poetic experiments. This is because his poetic imagination is in fact rooted in thorough consciousness against the oppression and violence that society or history exerts on individuals. For example, his most recent poetry collection, Naega salagal aram (내가 살아갈 사람The Person I Will Live As), is full of works that ask the question ‘what is the truth’ to the world. As he soberly perceives our history as a reality full of contradictions blotted by ‘the history of false tears’, he also resolves to “never forget what shouldn’t be forgotten”, and sincerely expresses his desire to send “the only book that people who have already passed can borrow through the mind”, to “people who have lived before me”, and “the person that I will live as”. In other words, his works are full of inquiry into the possibility and the means for which poetry and politics can meet.
Reference
Poetry Collections
The Border Florist 국경꽃집(Changbi Publishers, Inc. 창비, 2007)
I’m Sorry Mr. Anyways 아무튼 씨 미안해요(Changbi Publishers, Inc. 창비, 2012)
The Person I Will Live As 내가 살아갈 사람(Changbi Publishers, Inc. 창비, 2015)
From Heart to Deer가슴에서 사슴까지(Changbi Publishers, Inc. 창비, 2018)
A Ghost Poet 유령시인(ASIA Publishers 아시아, 2019)
If Morning Were Not to Come in Our Poems 만약 우리의 시 속에 아침이 오지 않는다면(Moonji Publishing co., Ltd. 문학과지성사, 2022)
Sources
Kim Yong-hee, "The Ominous Fallacy of Double Exposure," Literature and Society (Aug 2007). *Re: The Border Florist
- 김용희, 〈이중 인화의 불길한 환몽〉, 문학과사회(2007.08) ※ 시집 국경꽃집에 대해
Cho Gang-seok, "Poetic Sfumato and the Ethics of Tears," Munhakdle (May 2007). *Re: The Border Florist
- 조강석, 〈시적 스푸마토와 눈물의 윤리〉, 문학들(2007.05) ※ 시집 『국경꽃집에 대해
Hwang Hyeon-sah, "Adventurous Language and Lyric Poetry," The Quarterly Changbi (Sept 2012). *Re: I’m Sorry Mr. Anyways
- 황현산, 〈모험하는 언어와 서정시〉, 창작과비평(2012.09) ※ 시집 『아무튼 씨 미안해요에 대해
Jang Eun-jeong, "The Truth of Dreams," Literature and Society (Aug 2012). *Re: I’m Sorry Mr. Anyways
- 장은정, 〈몽환의 사실〉, 문학과사회(2012.08) ※ 시집 『아무튼 씨 미안해요에 대해
So Yujeong, "By the Empty Place," Literature and Society (Nov 2018). .*Re: From Heart to Deer
- 소유정, 〈빈자리의 곁에서〉, 문학과사회(2018.11) ※ 시집 『가슴에서 사슴까지에 대해
Park Jeong-hee, "Journal of Two Poets," Modeunsi (Winter 2018). *Re: From Heart to Deer
- 박정희, 〈두 시인의 일기장〉, 모든시(2018.겨울) ※ 시집 가슴에서 사슴까지에 대해
Lee Cheol-ju, "The Garden of Darkness and Sentences of the Night," The Quarterly Changbi (March 2020). *Re: From Heart to Deer
- 이철주, 〈어둠의 정원과 밤의 문장들〉, 창작과비평(2020.03) ※ 시집 가슴에서 사슴까지에 대해
Choe Seon-kyo, "Voices for the Potential Recovery of Broken Hearts," Literature and Society (Aug 2022). *Re: If Morning Were Not to Come in Our Poems
- 최선교, 〈부서진 마음의‘회복 가능성’을 위한 목소리〉, 문학과사회(2022.08) ※ 시집 만약 우리의 시 속에 아침이 오지 않는다면에 대해
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