On Translating Kim Ok

Kim Ok (1896–unknown) stands as a quietly radiant and neglected figure in early modern Korean poetry, bridging the rich lyricism of classical Korean verse with the hard elegance of modernism. Born in North P’yŏngan (present-day North Korea), Kim came of age during a time of seismic cultural shifts—the fall of King Gojong’s Imperial Korea, the onset of Japanese colonial rule, and the tumult of modernity pressing in from the West. Educated in Japan and skilled in English, French, and Japanese, Kim introduced Western poetic aesthetics and methods into Korean poetry through his translations of foreign poets—including Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire, and W. B. Yeats—and his own early verse, marked by experimentation and his wide reading. Over time, however, his style shifted toward a more conservative lyricism, favoring traditional sentiment and moral clarity in line with his pro-Japanese politics. His evolution reflects the complex tensions of writing under colonial—and then nationalist—rule, where art can never be wholly divorced from questions of national identity, and personal and cultural survival or destruction. 

Kim’s final years are embroiled in intrigue. At the outset of the Korean War in 1950, he was abducted to Pyongyang, North Korea, where he reportedly served on the Central Committee for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification, until he was forced to relocate to a farm collective in 1958, his last known whereabouts. In South Korea, his name appears most prominently today in the Encyclopedia of Pro-Japanese Collaborators.

The two translations printed here are based on poems from Kim’s seminal 1923 collection, Songs of the Jellyfish. In these translations, I have not aimed for literal fidelity but have instead treated the author’s work as a space for experimentation, with my English versions being visual and typographic compositions as much as translations.