Ch'oe Sung-ja (b. 1952) is one of the most well-known and highly regarded contemporary women poets of South Korea. In 1979, Ch'oe became the first woman poet to be published in a literary journal. Ch'oe's poetry violated the criteria of decorum that had been long imposed on women poets. She is a member of Another Culture (Ttohana ui munhwa), which emerged in the 1980s and has played a critical role in feminist literary research and publication, including development of women's studies in South Korea. Kim teaches creative writing and Korean poetry at Seoul College of Arts. Yi's first book of poetry, A Night Market Where There Are Prostitutes, was published by Sekyesa, a well-known literary press in South Korea. Yi's second collection of poems was published in 1993 after her death. Yi committed suicide in 1992. Yi's poetry has a critical place in the feminist poetry of the 1980s. Literary translator and scholar of contemporary Korean literature, Don Mee has received grants from the Korean Literature Translation Institute, Seoul and the Sunshik Min Endowment for the Advancement of Korean Literature.
Kim Hyesoon began publishing in 1979 and was one of the first few women in South Korea to be published in Munhak kwa jisong (Literature and Intellect), one of two key journals which championed the intellectual and literary movement against the US-backed military dictatorships of Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan in the 1970s and 80s. She has since won numerous literary prizes, and was the first woman to receive the coveted Midang (2006) and Kim Su-yong (1998) awards named after two major modern poets. Midang was a poet who stood for ‘pure poetry’ (sunsusi) while Kim Su-yong’s poetry is closely associated with ‘engaged poetry’ (ch’amyosi) that displays historical consciousness. She lives in Seoul and teaches creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts. She has published three selections of her work in the US with Action Books, Mommy Must Be a Fountain of Feathers (2008), All the Garbage of the World, Unite! (2011) and Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream (2014), and one with Bloodaxe Books in the UK, I'm OK, I'm Pig! (2014), all translated by Don Mee Choi; and most recently, Don Mee Choi's translation of Autobiography of Death (New Directions, USA, 2018), winner of the International Griffin Poetry Prize in 2019.