Poet Kim Hye-soon (Moonji Publishing)
Poet Kim Hye-soon (Moonji Publishing)

Kim Hye-soon, one of Korea’s most celebrated poets, has released her 15th collection of poetry, "Synchronized Sea Anemone," her first in three years.

Since debuting in 1979, Kim, 69, has pushed the boundaries of Korean poetry with a voice at once visceral and experimental. Her latest collection gathers 65 poems divided into eight sections, along with a short letter to readers and an English translation of the title poem, "Synchronized Sea Anemone" (translated by Mia You).

In the title work, the poet says: “Now I am a beautiful synchronized sea anemone / as if in water / even without any water"

In another passage, the speaker slips between genders and races: “If I sing to you my gender changes / I become a woman and then / I become a man and then I go back / to neither woman nor man but a self-fertilizing sex / while I toss and turn with you my race changes / red race blue race pink race"

The imagery stems from Kim’s encounter with a sea anemone in a giant lobby aquarium. She recalls being struck with a sense of comfort and awe at its movement — its flowerlike colors swaying with invisible currents.

In the closing prose piece, Kim reflects on her changing relationship to her art.

“I used to write poems filled with pain,” she says. “Then, as if doused with cold water, I thought I must write differently. These are those poems.”

After completing the Death trilogy — "Autobiography of Death" (2016), "Phantom Pain Wings" (2019) and "If the Earth Dies, Whom Will the Moon Circle?" (2022) — the poet felt she needed water to cleanse herself.

She goes on, “Had I not encountered them, I might have become a person whose face was shadowed by death. Writing them, I learned that pain, sorrow even tragedy could be held in a vessel of joy.”

"Synchronized Sea Anemone" (Nanda)
"Synchronized Sea Anemone" (Nanda)

Kim has, in recent years, emerged as the most internationally translated and recognized Korean poet.

In July, she became the first Asian recipient of the International Prize for Literature, a German literary award presented by the House of World Cultures in Berlin. She was also elected an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences this year.

In 2024, she won a National Book Critics Circle Award in the US for "Phantom Pain Wings." In 2022, she was named an International Writer by the Royal Society of Literature in the UK. In 2021, the won Sweden's Cikada Prize. She received the Griffin Poetry Prize in Canada in 2019, becoming the first Korean to win the honor.


hwangdh@heraldcorp.com