Kim Nam Jo was born in Daegu in 1927 and attended a girls’ school in Kyushu, Japan. She graduated from the College of Education at Seoul National University with a B.A. in Korean education. Kim made her literary debut with the publication of her poem, “Lingering Image,” in Yonhap News in 1950 and launched her career as a poet with her first collection of poems, Life in 1953. Kim’s poems express a subtle and feminine sensibility that carries on a lineage of female poets such as Moh Youn Sook and Noh Cheonmyeong from before Korean liberation from Japan. She is grounded in the Catholic faith and her writing gravitates toward the realm of love and life, with themes of maternity and peace. Her early works pay tribute to the dignity of life. In Life, she writes affirmatively about human nature and delineates the world of passion derived from the fullness of life’s vitality. In her collections A Flag of Sentiments and The Winter Sea, she refined her poetic world with increasing emotion. Her later works became more contemplative and explored the fundamental dimensions of humanism. The poet has confessed she received a mandate to delve into the depths of “love” and “poetry,” and accordingly, has chosen erotic and agape love as the themes of her recent poetic exploration and expression.With a voice emanating from deep within, Kim Nam Jo has sung about the ultimately positive aspects of life and achieved a beauty of both form and rhythm through fluid language. She has established herself as an eminent writer in Korean modern literature who has become renowned for her poetry about the inner strength that elevates the human spirit.Kim is at present a member of the National Academy of Arts of the Republic of Korea. The English translation of her poetry, Selected Poems of Kim Namjo, was published in 1993; the Christening of the Wind in Japanese in 1995; the German translation, Windtaufe, in 1996; and Antologia Poética in Spanish in 2003.
1. Life
Kim Namjo was born on September 25, 1927, in Daegu, South Korea. She attended a girls' school in Kyushu, Japan, and graduated from Seoul National University's college of education in 1951 with a degree in Korean language education. Kim made her official literary debut in 1950 while still in college, publishing the poems "Seongsu" (성수 Constellations) and "Jansang" (잔상 Afterimage) in Yeonhap Sinmun. Her first collection of poetry, Moksum (목숨 Life), was published in 1953. Kim taught at Masan High School and Ewha Girls' High School. She became a professor at Sookmyung Women's University in 1954 and is now a Professor Emerita there. Kim served as chairperson of Society of Korean Poets and is currently a member of the Korean Academy of Arts.
2. Writing
Kim Namjo's poetry features dynamic use of sensual language and vibrant imagery to portray the subtlety of human emotions. Kim's work follows in the tradition of Moh Youn Sook and Noh Cheonmyeong. Kim's main theme is love, not simply the love shared by a man and woman, but also the love shared between a human and the "Absolute Being."
The poems in her first poetry collection, Moksum, offer both an affirmation of humanity and a passion for the vitality of life. These poems also present a harmonious balance between Catholic piety and an ardent human voice. The poems in Kim's second collection, Naadeuui Hyangyu (나아드의 향유 Ointment of Nard), and third collection place an increasingly heightened emphasis on religious faith, focusing much attention on the exploration of Christian humanism and ethics. Her later poems discard passion for restraint and perseverance as part of an ongoing religious self-examination. In the collection Gyeoul Bada (겨울바다 Winter Sea), the poet describes a world in which human emotions have attained absolute purity.
