Anxiety of Words focuses on the work of three contemporary Korean
women poets whose fierce poetic voices display a critical consciousness
of women's lives under patriarchy, capitalism, and neocolonialism. Each
poet is represented, in bilingual format, by approximately twenty poems
and a biographical introduction. The volume also contains a detailed
introduction to the Korean poetry scene by translator Don Mee Choi, with
a focus on the historical and contemporary role of women poets in
Korea.
The poetry of Ch'oe Sung-ja, Kim Hyesoon, and Yi Yon-ju consistently
violates the literary expectations of gentle and subservient yoryu
(female) poetry through innovative language and depictions of Korean
women's identities and struggles.
Ch'oe employs a confessional device that opposes and resists her outside
world--the patriarchy. Kim employs conversational schemes that involve
dialogues between multiple selves within a woman to discover her own
identity, and Yi, before her suicide, embraced the language of decay and
death, while her stark and powerful language was created in relation to
the lives of economically and socially marginalized women in Korean
society.
By challenging literary and gender expectations, Ch'oe, Kim, and Yi
occupy a marginalized position in Korean society as women and poets. In
the context of South Korea's highly patriarchal and structured society,
their poetry is defiant and revolutionary.
