Kim Sun-hyang publishes a collection of poems

Recently, she published an anthology of poems called “A Diary of Poetry.” Mrs. Kim currently serves as chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the University of North Korean Studies.

She has authored a number of books relative to her specialized knowledge, including the “Elegies of John Donne.” But it was the first time in 33 years that she had published a book on her life.

Back in 1980, she published a ‘Broken Moon,’ a collection of essays which recorded her great pain arising from the loss of her first child.

Before she put the collection of poems into print, she asked her husband to comment about it.
He answered that it was considered ‘too negative.’ “That’s the reason that I worked to downsize the portion of sad stories. I have written some 120 poems in a span of 14 years, but only 100 poems were compiled into a ‘Dairy of Poems'."

It was in 1998 that she began to write poetry essays. That year her mother passed away after undergoing three surgeries. While being unable to walk, she lay in a bed of sickness for 10 years before she died. Determined to bury the past, Mrs. Kim began to write poetry diaries once or twice a month or whenever some painful incidents erupted.

In 2010, she had a concussion after falling down during a workout near a lake. At first, she had no idea that she suffered a concussion. She had her whole hair cut like a monk to undergo brain surgery. She put her 14 years of life experiences into the collection of poetry essays.

Of particular note, she was very much impressed when her husband, Park Jae-kyu, president of Kyungnam University, received an award from a former French President Jacques Chirac-founded organization in Paris in 2009. For his contribution to the peace of the Korean Peninsula, Park became a laureate of the Special Jury Prize for the first Conflict Prevention Prize. Park served as the unification minister between 1999 and 2001 under the administration of the late President Kim Dae-jung.

Poet and Kyungnam University Professor Chung Il-keun commented: “I was much very touched by a Dairy of Poems which is honest recordings of her experiences. All the more, I feel like that I viewed a documentary called ‘Life’ upon reading all the 100 poems.”

During her high school days, Mrs. Kim was fond of literature. She was a writing competition finalist. She majored in English literature at Ewha Womans University and Fairleigh Dickinson University of the United States.