[04/08/25] Lee, Kyo: i cut my tongue on a broken country

Arsenal Pulp Press, paperback

Publication Date: April 8, 2025

Publisher Marketing: 

A debut poetry collection about reconciling with oneself and learning to love, through a youthful, queer diasporic Korean lens

Lotus flowers, youthful hunger, and other temporary beauties intertwine to tell this coming-of-age story, a set of pulsating poems that move toward a distant memory or a flaming future.

Kyo Lee's intimate debut poetry collection is simultaneously a vulnerable confession and a micro study of macro topics including lineage, family, war, and hope. i cut my tongue on a broken country explores the Asian American diaspora, queerness, girlhood, and the relationships between and within them, pushing and pulling on the boundaries of identity and language like a story trying to tell itself.

i cut my tongue on a broken country documents a search for love. It's a eulogy for the things we gave up to get here. It's an ode to tenderness. It blossoms and bleeds in your hands.