In his first full-length collection of poetry, Broken Mirrors, Yoon Sik Kim forges the poetic traditions of the East and the West in a strictly Poundian sense. Following Li Po's light-foot and nature-treading tradition, Kim's passion for lyrics is found throughout the pages. Although his poems stray occasionally into societal issues, which have little to do with the Taoistic aesthetics of lyricism, such digression is unavoidable given that he endures a life of an exile in a foreign country where he tries to wring the core of human existence with this cumbersome language called English. Seeing Pound as his mentor, Kim creates a hard, precise, imagistic luminosity that dominates his poetry and begs the reader to return time and again. |
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I am writing on behalf of Yoon Sik Kim, whose work I have known for several years. As Editor of the New York Quarterly, I have been proud to publish Kim's poetry, distinguished from the work of his peers by its intelligence, passion, and sincerity. Kim has, I believe, a brilliant career ahead of him in his writing, and I am glad that NYQ has been able to be a part of the beginning of his creative life. I send him all best wishes for the lyric passion and brave insight of his verse, which is so important to the cultural life of these United States of America.
—William Packard, March 1990
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