He attended Hupo High School, and graduated from Korea University with a degree in Korean Literature.
Kim has been a visiting professor at Brigham Young University, USA, and at Far Eastern College, Russia.
Memory in Kim's poetry centers around two overwhelmingly dark images - his father and the Korean War.
By reviving memories of childhood suffering, the poet aims to release himself from past experiences which cloud his life in the present.
In Kim's poetry, then, confrontation with the past seeks to broaden one's range of emotions in order to open the possibility of true experience.