Kim was raised as an orphan, having been sent to an orphanage in Anyang from the Seoul Municipal Children's Hospital in 1961.
[4] Kim's poetry is unsentimental[5] and focuses on human physicality and the relationship between the body and the violence inflicted upon it.
For this reason, Kim has been described as “an observer of minute and microscopic details.”[6] A series of his poems linked by a common motif — “Mouse,” “Tiger,” “Snake,”and “Ox” — focus on the instinct to survive.
The tension resulting from the violence and pain inherent in the game of survival is depicted without any sentimentality.
However, the cold logic of survival that color Kim's poetic world is pierced by the presence of new life such as “a biddy crying in front of a subway station” and “the sound of an insect coming from a TV in the middle of a night.” In the history of violence and pain etched into our body over many generations, the poet discovers a glimpse of a wondrous new world featuring purity, innocence and mystery.