Broken Mirrors

Poetry. Asian American Studies. 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.