 Kim's poetic career witnessed a transition from the prose poem of the post-Korean War period to longer poems such as "Song in Praise of the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy" (Gwaneumchan), "Ideals of the Dream" (Kkumui isang), and "Six Songs" (Yukgok).These longer poems evince the poet's desire to penetrate to the core of self-consciousness, though they also possess a philosophical profundity otherwise difficult to effectively convey in shorter poetry.Though grounded in Buddhist thought, Kim's poetry reveals the deep influence of Western surrealism in the development of the poet's aesthetic.