I Cut My Tongue on a Broken Country

Title: I Cut My Tongue on a Broken Country
Author: Kyo Lee
Poetry: 1676437
ISBN: 9781551529776
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Published: 2025
Binding: Paperback
Language: English
Section: Poetry | Women Authors
Condition Note: New from the publisher
Publisher Description:

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.