I'm OK, I'm Pig!

by Kim Hyesoon, Don Mee Choi (Translator)

Kim Hyesoon is one of South Korea's most important contemporary poets. She began publishing in 1979 and was one of the first few women in South Korea to be published in Munhak kwa jisong (Literature and Intellect), one of two key journals which championed the intellectual and literary movement against the US-backed military dictatorships of Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan in the 1970s and 80s.

Don Mee Choi writes: 'Kim's poetry goes beyond the expectations of established aesthetics and traditional "female poetry" (yoryusi), which is characterised by its passive, refined language. In her experimental work she explores women's multiple and simultaneous existence as grand-mothers, mothers, and daughters in the context of Korea's highly patriarchal society, a nation that is still under neo-colonial rule by the US. Kim's poetics are rooted in her attempt to resist conventional literary forms and language long defined by men in Korea. According to Kim, "women poets oppose and resist their conditions, using unconventional forms of language because their resistance has led them to a language that is unreal, surreal, and even fantastical. The language of women's poetry is internal, yet defiant and revolutionary".'

Genres: Poetry, Asian Literature

160 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 2014

About the author

Born in Ulijin, South Korea, Kim Hyesoon (1955-) received her PhD in Korean Literature from Konkuk University, and began as a poet in 1979 with the publication of Poet Smoking a Cigarette. She began to receive critical acclaim in the late 1990s and she attributes this to the strong wave of interest in poetry by woman poets; currently she is one of South Korea’s most important contemporary poets, and she now lives and teaches in Seoul. Her poetry aims to strive for a freedom from form, by experimenting with language focusing on the sensual - often female - body, in direct opposition to male-dominated lyrical poetry. ‘They are direct, deliberately grotesque, theatrical, unsettling, excessive, visceral and somatic. This is feminist surrealism loaded with shifting, playful linguistics that both defile and defy traditional roles for women.’

Having published more than ten poetry collections, a number of these have been translated into English recently: When the Plug Gets Unplugged (2005); Mommy Must be a Fountain of Feathers (2008); All the Garbage of the World, Unite! (2011); Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream (2014) and I’m O.K., I’m Pig (2014). Tinfish has also published a small chapbook of three essays entitled Princess Abandoned (2012).

Throughout her career she has gained nearly all of South Korea’s most prestigious literary awards, named after the country’s greatest poets, such as Kim Su-yông Literature Award (1997), the Sowol Poetry Literature Award (2000) and the Midang Literature Award (2006). She was also the first female to win the Daesan Literary Award in 2008.

Reviews

[Naomi Pandey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very raw and visceral poetry. The imagery and figurative language both disgust and fascinate. Some really compelling world building and original concepts explored solely with short poems!

[Barry Welsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Watch my review on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt1Rk...

[Kayleigh Cassidy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rooted in activism, pioneering the female voice previously marginalised in South Korea, Kim Hyesoon paints both vicious and delicate images with her words. Rats eating their young, pigs being strangled by their own tail and the cold water inside a mirror are some of the images which are stamped into my mind. I loved how visceral the reading experience was and her use of double verbs like; 'splatsplatter' gave a childish glint to the inhumane content of the stories.

Hyesoon plays with rhythm in a way which offers a different perspective to everyday objects. For example, I look at eyelids all day, but I have never considered them a horizon, not until I read this collection of poetry. I like that about Hyesoon, she uses simplicity in a way which still confuses the reader. Despite understanding elements or favouring images I was never able to grasp what the poetry meant. But I was able to feel its emotional intensity.

A really great read if you are looking to be inspired by a strong female voice.

[Cherree · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unique! She puts together words and images that don't seem to go together or explain themselves at first glance. Once in a while you are left with a "what?" moment...but that's okay with me. I like it.

[Cubierocks]

Fave: spring rain

[David Ricardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still deciding wether I liked it or disliked it, but it’s certainly a unique art piece.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I absolutely loved Kim Hyesoon's other works. This one did not impress me as much. In many kinds of poetry, I feel that the words run on without taking you along one step at a time, I find good poems to be ones that can take you one step at a time so you can see everything. Most of this collection ran past without asking me to join. A few sections pulled me in, and Kim's distinct charms remained throughout but not in the same way that I experienced with Autobiography of Death which I keep rereading.