“I am a synchronized anemone, neither plant nor animal.”

Poet Kim Hyesoon’s New Work ‘… Sea Anemone’
Focus on Movements Beyond Definition and Rules,
, ‘“To my weather, which will never meet the same day again/ To my weather, which never prepares the same sky for a day” (from the poem ‘Missed Weather’)’,
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, ‘Gaining global attention with awards such as the National Book Critics Circle Award in the US and the International Literature Award from the House of World Cultures in Germany, poet Kim Hyesoon (photo) published her new poetry collection ‘Synchronized Sea Anemone’ (Nanda) on the 4th. This is her first new poetry collection in about three years, featuring 65 poems divided into eight sections.’,
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, ‘Kim is considered one of the most notable Korean writers abroad, becoming the first Korean author to join the prestigious ‘American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ in the humanities and arts sector in April this year. After experiencing a sudden collapse at a subway station in 2015 due to neurological issues, she published her “trilogy of death” starting with ‘The Autobiography of Death’ (2016), followed by works like ‘Phantom Pain of the Wings’ (2019) and ‘Who Will the Moon Orbit Once the Earth Dies?’ (2022).’,
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, ‘While her previous poetry collections presented introspective works connecting physical pain with various deaths faced by Korean society, the new collection is said to comprise poems written with a ‘purified’ heart. In the first included work ‘Missed Weather,’ the poet transforms even fluctuating weather of sunshine and rain showers into a fleeting but cherished moment that “will never be met again today.”’,
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, ‘In the poet’s note titled ‘Kim Hyesoon’s Letter’ at the end of the collection, instead of an afterword, Kim writes, “I suddenly thought I must write different poems as if pouring cold water over myself,” adding, “If I hadn’t met these poems, I would have become a person with death shadowed over my face. Through writing these poems, I realized that pain, sorrow, and tragedy can be contained within a joyful vessel.”’,
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, ‘The poet’s representative work ‘Synchronized Anemone’ also includes an English translation. It is a piece that sings of freedom beyond the world’s definitions and rules, as it belongs to neither the plant, animal, nor fish kingdom.’
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