Recipient of the 2025 Arts Council Korea Literature Fellowship
"Heart, I call, and Heart looks around." —Excerpt from "Apricot," in Watching My Heart(Munhakdongne, 2022)
sLike a pillow hugged by a nine-year-old child pondering all night about what to play tomorrow, if one were to assign a shape to the sorrow and love of one's heart unlike anyone else's, would it look like a snowman? Kim Ryung is a poet who believes that that snowman came before man.
1. Life
Kim Ryung was born in Jinju, Gyeongsangnam-do, in 1961. Thanks to his father who was a policeman, his childhood was spent flitting like a small cloud from one rural town to another. Kim never especially dreamed of becoming anything, admitting that his schoolbag was full of volumes of Korean and world literature instead of textbooks, and that this attitude eventually formed the basis of his creativity. Perhaps he believed that if he piled up his sleep like bricks, he would be able see the unseen, obtain the unobtainable. As for his university years, when he spent more days sitting in a movie theater or going to the sea by himself than going to class, the only thing he could boast of was his constant romance with poetry. After graduation, he worked for ten years as a journalist before deciding one day that he needed to write his own stories and quitting out of the blue. It was a dramatic gesture that reaffirmed his conviction that if he was able to find beauty in himself looking back, like someone bursting out in tears, it didn't matter so much if he ended up being a failure in this lifetime. Kim has been a full-time writer since making his literary debut winning the poetry section of the 2007 Munwha Ilbo New Writer’s Contest with "A Few Misconceptions on Clouds" and the children's poetry category of the Kangwon Ilbo New Writer’s Contest with "Cabbage Worms." He teaches at local universities, schools, and libraries, playing with poetry and writing rice like a lazy nine-year-old.
2. Writing
Kim Ryung's poetry combines experimental language with a fairytale sensibility. His children's poems "Run, Public Phone!" and "Cabbage Worms," his earliest work, were noted for their novel poetic approach and risk-taking language, while his poem "A Few Misconceptions on Clouds" won lavish praise for bypassing solemn gravity in favor of a more playful take on pain that comforts the reader. Unspeakable personal suffering, agony, and loneliness are all tackled in the vehicle of poetry.
This is supported by the judges' commentary for the 2ndMunhakdongnaeChildren’sPoetryAward,wonforhiscollectionMom's Rules(Munhakdongne, 2014): "Kim Ryung's poems fly around. His writing has wings. His poems flit effortlessly between reality and fantasy, humanity and nature." (Lee Jebok, children's and YA literary critic) "The poet's subversive imagination that challenges the status quo is inspiring, pointing out the path for children's poetry going forward." (Ahn Do-Hyun, poet) New, strange, hot, and unusual are all words describing Kim's children's poetry.
"Kim Ryung's poetry owes its style to judicious omission and hiding. His poetic subjects never speak of their loneliness or sadness directly, despite being fully qualified to do so. Instead, the poet hides another inner voice behind that of the speaker. Kim does not use figures of speech to cover up a lack of imagination or things to say, but in order to better set off his pressing message. His approach of concealing in order to reveal shook up children's poetry in Korea, still stuck in one-dimensional repetition. The poet's determination to push beyond the language and figures of speech deemed appropriate for children's poetry is evident in this approach." ―Kim Jegon, "Decentralized Imagination for a New Kind of Children’s Poetry" from How to Read Children’s Poetry(Changbi, 2022)
Reference
Children's poetry
The Cat Burglar on a Frying Pan 프라이팬을 타고 가는 도둑고양이 (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2009)
Wee-Woo, Wee-Woo, Tears Come Running 삐뽀삐뽀 눈물이 달려온다 (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2012)
I’m Going to the Stars 별에 다녀오겠습니다 (Changbi Publishers, Inc. 창비, 2014)
Mom'sRules엄마의 법칙 (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2014)
Eom Dongsu, from the Moon달에서 온 아이 엄동수 (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2016)
Everyone’s in First Grade with First Love첫사랑은 선생님도 일 학년 (Changbi Publishers, Inc. 창비, 2018)
Parrot Poetry 앵무새 시집 (Sangsang publishing 상상, 2020)
Watching My Heart 내 마음을 구경함 (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2022)
Eleven Pages of Sunshine 햇볕11페이지 (Changbi Publishers, Inc. 창비, 2023)
동시평론집
Don’t Eat the Poems on the Cat’s Whiskers 고양이 수염에 붙은 시는 먹지마세요 (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2021)
Picture books
Penguin Orchestra (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2023)
YA poetry
Love Growls 사랑이 으르렁(Changbi Publishers, Inc. 창비, 2019)
시집Poetry
Apricot Soap Grows on Apricot Trees 살구나무에 살구비누 열리고(Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2012)
Monkey's Monkey 원숭이의 원숭이(Moonhak Soochup 문학수첩, 2018)
Poems I Took Back from My Lover 애인에게 줬다가 뺏은 시 (dareulssoda 달을쏘다, 2020) ―Dongju Literature Prize Anthology 동주문학상 수상시집
My Meringue Teacher 나의 머랭 선생님 (sundaypoet 시인의 일요일, 2021)
There Must Be a Dog That Wants to Raise a Bird 새를 키우고 싶은 개가 있을 겁니다 (Sangsangin 상상인, 2024) ―Sunkyung Literature Prize Anthology 선경문학상 수상시집
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