Abstract

This paper redefines the physical poetry that emerged in Korean poetry of the 1990s under the concept of a “material turn, ” and examines the role women’s poetry played in shaping and developing this shift. By adopting the term material turn rather than physical poetry, the study proposes a new methodological perspective through which attention to objects can be meaningfully interpreted. First, focusing on the case of Oh Kyu-won, the paper traces how the lineage of so-called “pure poetry” transitioned into an interest in object in the 1990s. In conjunction with readings of Lee Soo-myung’s poetry, this paper demonstrates that metonymy served as a principal poetic strategy in this material turn, and compares how anti-metaphorical methods were employed to reveal the agency and materiality of objects. These poems collectively illuminate the distinctive feature of the “material turn” in Korean poetry, in which the exploration of object is mediated through poetic language. The paper then turns to the works of Lee Sun-young, Kim Eon-hee, and Kim Hyesoon to show how women’s poetry produces a unique configuration of the material turn by intersecting femininity with objecthood. Through an analysis of scenes in which the female body enters both metonymic and metaphorical relations with objects—such as garments, waste, and trunks—the study reveals how women’s corporeality and the materiality of objects become jointly objectified and excluded within social discourse and power relations. In sum, the material turn in 1990s Korean poetry unfolded not only through the formal transformations associated with physical poetry but also through women poets’ explorations of materiality. Attending to the agency of objects while traversing the dichotomy between language and matter, these works collectively delineate the distinctive character of the material turn that took place in Korean poetry of the decade.