Recipient of the 2025 Arts Council Korea Literature Fellowship
Kim Young-ran is a poet known for contemporary sijo, carrying on the tradition of sijo in Korea. Her work perfectly represents the unique beauty of sijo while making full use of everyday language. Kim's sijo are characterized by a natural ease that belies the formalistic conventions of the genre.
1. Life
Kim Young-ran was born in Aewol, Jeju, in 1965. She spent her childhood in the port of Misu-dong, a small seaside village in Aewol-eup. She was active in literary circles at school and won prizes for her writing, but after marriage set her writing aside until she won the 2004 Jeju MBC Women's Writing Contest held under the theme of "Ports," after which she began writing in earnest again.
Finding herself drawn to modern sijo, Kim began applying to the JoongAng Sijo Contest. In April 2009, she won first place with her sijo "Littoral Spring" and again in April 2010 with "Jangdarikkot." In 2011 she won the sijo category of the Chosun Ilbo New Writer’s Contest for "Sinhallimbyeolgok." Born and bred in Jeju, she has never lived in any other place except for traveling. She teaches literary courses on a freelance basis and conducts research on part of the Jeju 4·3 Truth-Finding Investigation.
2. Writing
Kim Young-ran's first collection of poetry,Rhetoric of Flowers, is a quintessential example of sijo as fitting into the modern lifestyle. None of the medieval pledges of loyalty or archaic convention for Kim's sijo. Instead, the poet gives us verse that wholeheartedly throws itself into capturing the essence of contemporary sensibility, emotion, and thought.
Kim's third collection of poetry,Like Somebody Looked Inside Me, clearly demonstrates both external and internal necessity by virtue of establishing both centripetal force of form and centrifugal force of content. Rather than simple repetition and association of syllables and meter, the formality of her poetry comes from the active movement of how the text is organized, divided, and positioned. Her fourth poetry collection published in 2025, Don’t Say That the Camellias Are Gone, pays tribute to the Jeju April 3 Uprising, in particular the brutal incarceration the people had to put up with in the midst of fighting and resistance.
Reference
Poetry
Rhetoric of Flowers 꽃들의 수사修辭(Donghaksa 동학사, 2014)
The Mom Seller 몸 파는 여자(Goyoachim 고요아침, 2019)
Like Somebody Looked Inside Me 누군가 나를 열고 들여다볼 것 같은(siindongne 시인동네, 2021)
Don’t Say That the Camellias Are Gone 동백 졌다 하지 마라(Hangeuru 한그루, 2025)
Roof Tile with Beast Design 귀면와(Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2012)
Harvard Korean Fried Chicken 하버드 양념치킨(Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2013)
Spring Condolences 봄의 문상(Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2014)
Oh Dear, Oh Dear 으짜꼬 으짜꼬(Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2015)
Black Leopard 검은 표범(Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2016)
The Person I Left Behind 두고 온 사람(Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2017)
10th Anniversary Collection of the 21st Century Sijo Collective 21세기 시조동인10주년 기념 선집(Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2018)
Tinnitus 이명(Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2019)
Saying I Missed You 보고싶다는 말 (Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2020)
ZOOM (Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2021)
The Pond, Ducks, and Lotus Blossoms 연못과 오리와 연꽃(Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2023)
Room by the Sea 바다 옆의 방(Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2024)
Drawn with Love Letters 러브레터로 그린 그림(Co-author, Goyoachim 고요아침, 2025)
Essays
Looking Back, He Was Always There 돌아보면 그가 있었네(Co-author, Gak Co., Ltd. 도서출판 각, 2017)
Spring Comes, Spring Goes 봄은 가도 봄은 오네(Co-author, Hangeuru 한그루, 2020)
Reference
Yu Seong-ho, "Aesthetic Lyricism Encompassing Specific Lives and History," Rhetoric of Flowers. Donghaksa, 2014.
유성호<구체적 삶과 역사를 품은 심미적 서정>, 꽃들의 수사, 동학사, 2014.
Sin Sang-jo, "Three Ways of Recording History," Red Dharma Teaching. Sangsanginpyeongnon, 2021.
신상조, <역사를 기록하는 세 가지 방식>, 붉은 화행, 상상인평론, 2021.
Kim Dong-yoon, "Ever-Blooming Blossoms of Passion," Don’t Say That the Camellias Are Gone. Hangeuru, 2025.
김동윤, <지지않는 열정의 꽃>, 동백 졌다 하지 마라, 한그루, 2025.
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