Kim Hoyeonjae

Kim Hoyeonjae (김호연재 / 金浩然齋) (1681-1722) is one of the few prolific, well-documented Korean women poets of the Joseon dynasty. She wrote over two hundred  poems, which her daughters-in-law copied and preserved to hand down generations. Despite her aristocratic background, Kim had to cope with an impoverished life because of her absent husband who kept failing kwageo (Joseon’s civil exam at the time, and the only way to achieve any professional accomplishments for his class). She wrote a number of poems about such financial challenges, including her lauded “Begging the Magistrate for Rice.”