Critical Views

I sharpened a knife every day
Hoping I would slice the time and spend it
In lay abandon of me,
I sat sharpening a knife all day long.
Yet, the knife that can't slice the time
Only stabs me who runs headfirst from wall to wall
Only to be blunted by stabbing me
A blunt knife wears out only to vanish
Every time I sharpen it
―The knife(whole Verse)
The mysterious knife, induced in her poetry symbolizes the resistant will against the conditions of original beings that are binding up the poet herself, and an instrument symbolizing of their limits of the will. When the poet is going to break down the limits of will and to pass beyond them, Her own will to destroy them is a kind of self-contradiction rather counterattacked like a boomerang effect. That is to say, the emotional exclusion of subjectivity and objective attitude of in her poem, also showing to objectify the antinomy of humanity are to be maintained. I think, to propose things, events, and landscapes with their images phenomenologically is one of the characteristics of the poet. Namely, It will be the poet's voice and an unique poetic world.

Moon Deok-su
Member of National Academy of Arts,
Poet, Literary Critic, Ex-Prof. of Hong-Ik Univ.

■Critical Views
As I read the poetess Kim Jong-Hee's poems, I recognized how did the clear, crystal attitude of creating poetry and her serious poetic spirit on life and death unite purely.
One cold winter's day Eighteen below zero,
I came back home after shuddering with cold outside.
And then putting my frozen feet into a warm quilt
I pondered again:
-Is death worse than life indeed?-
- I Pondered Again (Whole Verse)
In spite of using easy and plain poetic diction, I think its spiritual width and depth, and life's experience are enormous. Her poetic world as her meditation, based on the philosophy of life, is not a simple, empty idea of life and death, is experienced through daily life, and so gives our readers much emotion and apocalyptic messages with diverse symbolism.
So I expect our readers can approach to her graceful and dignified poems with an easy or peaceful mind, and can be received to consider our daily problems with a right composure and a sound judgment.
Truly, I dare say that her poetry has uniqueness in the commonness as Lao-tzu said in his moral philosophy. Therefore her poems, produced by the experiences of her real life are not separated from one another, but show the natural union to us.

Ma Kwang-Su,
Writer, Prof. of Yonsei Univ.


■Critical Views
A mother with two daughters
Who have said of
‘Enjoy happy life with a smile’
According to the family precepts,
From the roof of 14th storied apartment
Fell down one by one
And died.
-A Mother and Two Daughters (Whole Verse)
The poetess proposes dramatically an irony of our life from the family precepts, ‘Enjoy happy life with a smile’ and their last tragedy of the family. Except for such a situation what shall we need to say more?
The poetess' eyesight, penetrating the tragedy of our living, is based on the reflex action cleaning herself ceaselessly as washing the mirror. The darkness reflected on the shining mirror is so deeper darkness, and because the purity can brighten so purely, even if the rags of our life are a part of endless process, her poems are showing us to be renewed by the ruminating power of the inverse current.

Yun Byung-Ro
Literary Critic, Ex-Prof. of Sungkyunkwan Univ.

제1부
The Tree of Life
Lady S Faints and Collapses
Adam Is Sad
Gaia's Breathing Is Laboured
The Earth Fighting Against an Illness
A Stone In A stream
Knife
An Old Man
The Light
A Dawn Bell
Birds Do Not Sing
Burial
We Are Happy As Yet
Idea
Self-Portrait
I Pondered Again
Out of Time's Range
I Have A Dream
A Dandelion
Spring Rain
A Secret Medicine Of Love
In November
A Mother and Two Daughters
Gwangwhamun

제2부
Life 1
As the Grass As It Is
To be a Plant of Human Tree
Earth Is A Garden of Cosmos
The Love of the Sun and Trees
The Word We Call Love
A Narrow Mountain Path
Taking A Walk in Winter
On February
Two Rivers
My Poem in the Mirror Again
The Way Going Without Taking A Walk
Woong-Nyo and Hwan-Woong*
A Stone Within Me
Can't I Communicate my Mind in Only Thinking
He Has No Way Out
An Encounter With the Dead Person
Have I Turned Into An Animal?
Husband and Wife
My Husband
I am Very Far Away

Critical Views
Poems of Kim Jong-Hee
판권지