문학과 지성사

This poetry collection unfolds “reworlding” built up layers,
and transparent beauty that “can be recognized at a glance.”

Mixed Transparency Space is the first poetry collection by Kim Liyoun, who made her literary debut in 2019 by winning the New Writers Award from Literature and Society. At the time of her debut, Kim received praise for the "unparalleled beauty” of her poetry filled with lines "that come alive with light and warmth wriggling like substances.” For the past three years, her poems have appeared in More than Poems 2021(Moonji Publishing, 2021), 2022 Seesaw(Jamobook, 2022), and Good Poetry from the Past Season(World Opened by Poetry, 2021), attracting the attention of critics and readers alike.

This collection of 53 poems is divided into 4 parts. What stands out more than anything is the way Kim’s poetry perceives the world through the medium of light. The title Mixed Transparency Space refers to the concept of color spaces such as RGB and CMYK in graphic software, which describes the color, brightness, and chroma of an image in three dimensions, and derives different results depending on which color space the image is displayed in.
Despite such limitations, the poet always chooses to show rather than say something. Using “language” as a material, Kim seeks to reconstruct the world that she has witnessed into something visible. Thus, in the translucent world beyond multiple layers, the transparent beauty that “can be recognized at a glance” unfolds here and now.

If we perceive that we see something by the reflection of light, the object that we see in front of us is both the constantly updated past and future of light. That is “a tiny light that vibrates and flickers. It is the kind of light that will surely grow little by little with every step we take.” The poet, who always imagines that light, walks forward “holding transparent hands and lifting the darkness that penetrates the transparent feet”(from “Tourism”) of small beings. It is time to open the door to the future with such a clear and heavy time. Having published her first poetry collection, Kim Liyoun will go further and further beyond this first door.