An iconic figure in the emergence of feminist poetry in South Korea and
now internationally renowned, Kim Hyesoon pushes the poetic envelope
into the farthest reaches of the lyric universe. In her new collection,
Kim depicts the memory of war trauma and the collective grief of parting
through what she calls an "I-do-bird-sequence," where "Bird-human is the
'I.'" Her remarkable essay "Bird Rider" explains: "I came to write
Phantom Pain Wings after Daddy passed away. I called out for birds
endlessly. I wanted to become a translator of bird language. Bird
language that flies to places I've never been." What unfolds is an epic
sequence of bird ventriloquy exploring the relentless physical and
existential struggles against power and gendered violence in "the
eternal void of grief" (Victoria Chang, The New York Times Magazine).
Through intensely rhythmic lines marked by visual puns and words that
crash together and then fly away as one, Kim mixes traditional folklore
and mythology with contemporary psychodramatic realities as she taps
into a cremation ceremony, the legacies of Rimbaud and Yi Sang, a film
by Agnes Varda, Francis Bacon's portrait of Pope Innocent X, cyclones, a
princess trapped in a hospital, and more. A simultaneity of voices and
identities rises and falls, existing and exiting on their delayed wings
of pain.
