Kim Yi-deum

Kim Yi-deum is a South Korean poet and university lecturer.

Life

Kim Yi-deum was born in Jinju, South Korea and raised in Busan. She studied German literature at Pusan National University, and earned her doctoral degree in Korean literature at Gyeongsang National University. She made her literary debut when the quarterly journal Poesie published "The Bathtubs" and six other poems in its Fall 2001 Issue. Her poems have attracted attention for their sensual imagination and violence.
Kim was a radio host for "Kim Yi-deum's Monday Poetry Picks", which aired on KBS Radio Jinju. In 2012, she spent a semester at the Free University of Berlin as a writer in residence, sponsored by Arts Council Korea. Based on her experience there, she wrote her fourth poetry collection Bereulin, dalemui norae, published by Lyric Poetry and Poetics in 2013. She also participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

Writing

Kim Yi-deum's poetry collections include: Byeol moyangui eoluk ; Cheer Up, Femme Fatale ; Malhal su eopneun aein ; Bereulin, dalemui norae ; and Histeria. She also has a novel, Bleodeu sisteojeu. She currently teaches at Gyeongsang University.
Kim's poetry in translation has appeared in the British journal Modern Poetry in Translation 's winter 2016 issue, "The Blue Vein: Focus on Korean Poetry." In 2016, her first poetry collection in English translation Cheer Up, Femme Fatale was published by Action Books. Translated from the Korean by Ji Yoon Lee, Don Mee Choi, and Johannes Göransson, the work was selected as a finalist for the 2017 Best Translated Book Award and the 2017 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. In 2017, more of her poems in English translation were published by Vagabond Press as part of Poems of Kim Yideum, Kim Haengsook & Kim Min Jeong.
Kim's poems are known for their grotesque and provocative motifs. Her narrators are often schizophrenic or have multiple personalities, disrupting the existing world order. Many of her poems feature single mothers, prostitutes, people with disabilities, divorced women, queer people, mental patients, beggars, the elderly poor, and other minority groups. She observes the order governing their marginalized world and seeks new artistic possibilities through it. She condemns unreasonable social conventions using language that might be described as hysterical, destructive, vengeful, and rebellious. Apart from such themes, the strong eroticism in her poetry is considered to have made important contributions to Korean women's poetry.

Work

Poetry Collections
1. 『별 모양의 얼룩』
2. 『명랑하라 팜 파탈』
3. 『말할 수 없는 애인』
4. 『베를린, 달렘의 노래』
5. 『히스테리아』
Essay Collections
1. 『모든 국적의 친구』
2. 『디어 슬로베니아』
Critical Essays
1. 『한국현대 페미니즘시 연구』
Novels
1. 『블러드 시스터즈』

Works in translation

1. Cheer Up, Femme Fatale
2., Kim Haengsook & Kim Min Jeong

Awards

1. 2011: 7th Kim Daljin Changwon Literary Award
2. 2014: 7th Poet's Square: Poem of the Year Prize
3. 2015: 1st 22nd Century Poetry Award
4. 2015: Kim Chunsu Poetry Award