Choi Young-mi


Choi Young-mi is a poet and novelist from the Republic of Korea, widely known for her poetry collection called At Thirty, the Party is Over ” and is one of the defining figures who ignited the #MeToo movement in Korea.

Career

Born in Seoul Korea in 1961, Choi studied Western history at Seoul National University and art history at Hongik University.
Faced with the military dictatorship, she participated in anti-government protests during college days. In 1981 she participated in a student protest demanding for democracy. As a result, she was detained at police station for 10 days and was suspended from university for a year. After graduation, she joined an underground organisation called the “Constituent Assembly Group ” established to fight against the autocracy.
She was one of a secretive group who dared to translate Karl Marx's Capital for the first time after Korean War; this translation was published under a single pseudonym in 1987 and led to the arrest of the president of the Yiron Kwa Silcheon Books.
Following the decline of communism in the late 1980s and subsequent political changes at home and abroad, however, she came to be skeptical of grand narratives and to embrace a more inclusive worldview. She has tried to express that significant change both within and out of herself.
She began her career as a poet in 1992 when she published eight poems in the Winter Issue of the “Creation and Criticism ”, followed by her controversial poetry collection “At Thirty, the Party is Over ” which created a sensation to the circle of literary and public. Now she is known as a poet, a novelist and an art critic.

Activities

Her first poetry collection “At Thirty, the Party is Over” came across as a shock to the literary world and to the Korean society thanks to her delicate but bold expressions, precise metaphor that maximised the potential of everyday language and the piercing satire on capital and authority. As soon as the book was published, it gained support by a wide range of readers regardless of generation and made record sales of over half a million copies just in 1994.
She continued to write her poems and now she has published six poetry collections. Choi has built her independent domain in poetry by writing about love between man and woman, love of a family and satire on society.
Thanks to her successful first volume of poems, her later poems were relatively undervalued despite their promising qualities. But judging by the fact that she received the Isu Literary Award for “To the Pigs ” in 2006 and her book “Things Already Hot ” selected as Book Culture Foundation's Literary Book of Excellence in 2013, it clearly shows that her poems are well recognised throughout.
"Choi Young-mi's poems are un-compromising and threatening to conventional values of korean society." "Her style is her independence. Her poetry is very much a lived poetry."
“At Thirty, the Party is Over” narrates the light and the shadow of the generation in the 1980-90s, has been printed its 52nd copy to this date, a rare case for a poetry collection. Recently in November 2015, a revised edition was published in 21 years. While portraying the self-reflections of the 1980s generations who participated in the democratisation activists, her poems were characterised as lyrical and logical. The poem “At Sun-un Temple ” received love from nationwide and was sung by many different singers.
She has penned the novel Scars and Patterns, and The Garden of Bronze. Choi has also translated “Francis Bacon in Conversation with Michel Archimbaud” and “D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths” into Korean. In 2011 Choi was appointed as an honorary ambassador for the Korean National Assembly Library.
In 2017, the editor of a magazine requested Choi Young-Mi to write poems on feminism. In response, she wrote the poem "Monster" that exposed the sexual harassment and abuse by the old poet En. When her poem "Monster" released, the public immediately noticed that 'En' is Ko Un, which ignited the #Me Too movement.
Choi Young-Mi's revelation of Ko's molestation has played a major role in exposing the sexual harassments and assaults infested deep inside the Korean society, not only in the cultural and arts community. For this contribution, the Metropolitan City of Seoul has decided to present Choi Young-Mi with the grand prize of Sex Equality Award 2018.
Poet Ko sued her for defamation in summer 2018, but he has lost the case against poet Choi Young-Mi. The Seoul Central District Court sided with Choi saying her allegations of sexual harassment were credible. The court said her testimony was "consistent and specific," while there was "little reason to doubt the veracity of her claims."
Ko appealed to the Seoul High Court against the first court's ruling, but he also lost the appeal. The damages suit he filed against Choi Young-Mi was finally settled with the victory of poet Choi, as Ko gave up his appeal to the Supreme Court.

Works

In 1992, she began her career as a poet when she published “In Sokcho ” and seven other poems in the Winter Issue of the Creation and Criticism, followed by her 1994 record-selling first poem collection “At Thirty, the Party is Over”, which sold over half a million copies on the same year.
She wrote five more poetry collections: “Treading on the Pedals of Dreams ” “To the Pigs " “Life that has yet to Arrive ” “Things Already Hot ”and "What will not come again which includes the poem 'Monster' and other #Metoo poems.
Her first novel “Scars and Patterns ” about a family living in the outskirts of Seoul in the 1970s was published in 2005. In 2014 she wrote the “Bronze Garden ”, an autobiographical novel that talks about the wandering youth in the 1980s.
In 2006, she was awarded the Isu Literary Award for her book of poetry “To the Pigs ” which exposed the human conditions with satirical language. For the award, she was commented as below:
"Choi Young-mi's poems are un-compromising and threatening to conventional values of korean society." "Her style is her independence. Her poetry is very much a lived poetry."
- James Kimbrell
In 2005, Choi's poetry collection “At Thirty, the Party is Over” was published by Shoshiaokisha in Japan and made the headline of the Asahi Shimbun's culture page with a praise: “a clear language full of polysemy”.
Choi has experience in teaching creative writing in poetry at Inha University and Kangwon National University. Her work is included in high school textbooks while some of her poems have been rewritten as songs. “At Seon-un Temple ” was included in the high school textbook “Literature ” “At the Subway 2 ” in the high school textbook manual “Literature ” and the “Melancholy of the Era ” was included in the high school textbook manual “Essay Writing ”.
Three Korean songwriters, Gunyong Lee, Daesung Lee and Chihwan An, have made songs with poems by Choi Young-mi.
The 2-Disc Album “Love Alone – Artpop & Classic ” written by Gunyong Lee, the Director of the Seoul Metropolitan Opera, and sung by Kyungok Jeon, features four songs which took the lyrics from Choi Young-mi's poems, “At Seon-un Temple ” “A Ballad for Adonis ”, “The Ballad of the Sad Café ” and “On the First Day of Snow in Mount. Bukhansan ”. Furthermore, Choi's poem “At Seon-un Temple ” was re-arranged by Daesung Kim to be included in the musical composition “First Feeling ” of Kwonsoon Kang, a Korean Traditional Musician, while the same poem was sung by Chihwan An in his 10th Album “Today is Good ”.
In addition, she has written essays about life, travels and art: “Melancholy of the Era: Journal from Europe ” “To whom will peek into My Diary by Chance ” and “A Travel is Truly a Travel when You are Lost ”. Choi has also translated “Francis Bacon in Conversation with Michel Archimbaud” into Korean publication titled “The Cruel Hand of a Painter: Conversation with Francis Bacon ”.
Choi is a somewhat fanatic about football. She has written an article about Korean football in Die Tageszeitung's special issue “Taz Journal Mai 2006” for the 2006 FIFA World Cup and published an essay about football called “Ball does not wait for Man ” in 2011.
In 2011, Choi was appointed as an honorary ambassador for the Korean National Assembly Library and was active as a member of board in Korea Football Association's Football Love Sharing Foundation from 2012 to 2013.
Choi released “What will not come again ” - her newest poetry collection and first publication since the Me Too revelation. The book contains around 50 poems, with most discussing mundane topics like her dating life and caring for her senile mother. Several though, including “Monster,” relate to her encounters with Ko and their current legal dispute.
The publishing house for “What will not come again ” is Imi Books, a company that Choi established herself in 2019.