IN sat down with Lee, whose debut poetry collection explores learning to love through a youthful, queer diasporic Korean lens…
To say that Kyo Lee’s debut poetry collection, i cut my tongue on a broken country, is a testament to the power of poetry to navigate the complexities of identity and belonging is an understatement. Lee, a queer Korean writer, has grabbed the attention of Canada’s literary community by exploring the intricate intersections of language, culture and the queer experience. The youngest-ever recipient of the CBC Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2023 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award, Lee has garnered significant acclaim for her work, establishing her as a vital new voice in contemporary poetry.
Lee moved to Canada when she was seven, started writing her book at 15, and turned 18 earlier this year. In November 2023, she won the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize for her poem, lotus flower blooming into breasts. The press surrounding her win and her work helped to secure the highly anticipated release of her debut poetry collection, i cut my tongue on a broken country, which was published by Arsenal Pulp Press and hit shelves in March 2025.
We sat down with Lee recently to delve into the nuanced meanings behind her evocative titles, the challenges and triumphs of existing between languages, and the depths of her poetic vision.
i cut my tongue on a broken country feels like a deeply personal journey. What sparked the inspiration for this collection?
Reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton made me start writing a book, and then Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur made me start writing a poetry book. Frankly, I didn’t have a particular goal on what the collection should be or achieve; I just started writing poems, and those poems ended up rather personal, which perhaps speaks to my relationship to poetry and use of it as a coping mechanism.
Inevitably, I find that some poems, or the progression of the book as a whole, contain tones of growing up, because they quite literally document my coming of age. Strangely enough, I already look back at the time when I wrote the bulk of the collection, when I was 15 and 16, with an affection that only comes from distance.
The book is structured into distinct sections. Can you talk about the significance of these sections and how they contribute to the overall narrative arc of your collection?
The section titles are Korean words/concepts that cannot be directly translated to English. These are very rough translations, or at least the translations I considered when naming the sections:
Hyo (효) – filial piety/duty
Han (한) – resentment/regret/sorrow/anger, or some combination of these things and more
Chung (청) – blue-green colour with associations with youth
Jung (정) – type of affection, bond or love, resulting from familiarity
Firstly, I wanted the section titles to strengthen and play on the title, which itself is derived from one of the book’s central questions: what is lost in translation? Where and how do we lose parts of ourselves – and how, if at all, do we find them?
Second, the progression of sections embodies growth. The first section has stronger themes of family, which develops into struggle and then youthhood, but it ends with love. If read chronologically, this also implies that the previous sections ultimately lead to love for the self, others and the world.
The title itself is incredibly evocative. Could you delve into the meaning behind this title?
The title is a line from ‘Love Poem Between Countries,’ one of the poems in the book. In whole, it reads, ‘But i cut my tongue on a broken country & my English tastes like blood.’ The poem is about being broken between countries, but also about how language, or the tension of existing between multiple languages, can break you.
For example, my understanding of the world is influenced by the Korean language – not just the language but my relationship with it, its untranslatable connotations and denotations, and its history. This also relates to the other part of the title: Korea is literally broken into North and South. But the ‘country’ in the title, of course, is not specific to Korea – every country has its own broken parts.
Furthermore, the title is also about the conflict that occurs when languages, and the ways you think in each one, are contradictory to each other. For instance, my idea of love or empathy or hurt is different in Korean and English. Thus, ‘my English tastes like blood’ is not only about the violence of the English language but about how individual interpretations of language are tainted by the environments in which the language is learned and used.
You’ve achieved remarkable success at a young age – including being the youngest winner of the CBC Poetry Prize. What advice would you give to other young writers who are looking to find their voice and share their stories?
I often think about Orson Welles’ quote on how he directed Citizen Kane: ‘Ignorance…sheer ignorance. There is no confidence to equal it. It’s only when you know something about a profession that you are timid or careful.’ In no way to compare my book to Citizen Kane, but I do find a lot of myself – and even more of the self that wrote the book – in that ignorance. There is not much advice I can give aside from [suggesting you should take] advantage of that ignorance.
This is rather embarrassing to admit, but before publishing the book, or being even close to it, I imagined myself, hundreds of times, already having published a book. What I realized from that, though, is that I think you have to tell yourself a story of your success. I do not play into the idea that believing in something will make it come true, but sometimes, I think the act of imagination makes the concept real enough – and makes you desperate enough – that you just do it.
If you could recommend one poem from i cut my tongue on a broken country for readers to start with, which would it be, and why?
‘Love Poem Between Countries’ and ‘lotus flower blooming into breasts’ (accessible online or on my website, kyolee.me) are fairly good introductions to the collection because they touch on many of the larger themes in the book: language, diasporic existence, queerhood, love, and how we grapple with all of this at the same time.
The poems that a lot of people seem to resonate with are ‘Your city,’ ‘Fish Market Wedding’ (on my website) and ‘You step out of the coin karaoke’ (partly on my Instagram).
Beyond your book, where can readers connect with you and your work online?
I sometimes post my poems, in snippets or in whole, on my Instagram @kyoleewrites. Readers can also connect with me, and find samples of my poems, on my website. I am not great at responding to messages on Instagram, but I am much better with email. My friends constantly make fun of me for my dependence on email, but I do not waver in their hate.
Kyo Lee’s i cut my tongue on a broken country from Arsenal Pulp Press is available at select bookstores across Canada. Visit arsenalpulp.com. You can also learn more at her website, kyolee.me, or Instagram @kyoleewrites. Email her at contact@kyolee.me.
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