Kim Yideum

Kim Yideum believes the way history is generally presented is too neat and tidy. Where are the courtesans, why does no one talk about the women who chose a different life? In her poems she seeks out the darker sides of life, the places and events that are not usually talked about. Figures brush up against each other in dark alleyways, never shying away from the physical reality of contact. The body is sometimes dirty, wet and sticky, and it is precisely this imperfect state that Kim Yideum describes, attentively and full of wonder, so vividly that it can almost make the reader uncomfortable. Some poems are brief, gentle and romantic, while others are as muddled as monologues delivered by an unreliable narrator, brimming with contradictions. While her characters are sometimes listless, yearning for scandal and adventure, Yideum always manages to grab and hold the attention of her readers and listeners.