Kyo Lee writes about being a queer Korean Canadian — now she’s the youngest ever CBC Poetry Prize winner | CBC Books

Kyo Lee has won the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize for her poem lotus flower blooming into breasts.

She will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts. Lee’s poem was published on CBC Books. You can read lotus flower blooming into breasts here.

Lee is a queer, Korean Canadian high school student and writer. Her work has been published by Prism International, University of Toronto, Ringling College and the New York Times. Her debut poetry collection will be published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2024. Earlier this year, she was shortlisted for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for emerging writers.

lotus flower blooming into breasts explores themes of familial relationships and is also partly a queer love story. Lee told CBC Books her poem is about both platonic and romantic love and why she loves differently in different languages. 

“I start with personal experiences, almost like anecdotes, just things that have happened to me and then I connect them to the other things that have happened to me.”

Writing about being Korean Canadian

Lee told CBC Books that lotus flower blooming into breasts is inspired by her experience as a Korean Canadian: “I am a different person in each language, or at least that’s how I often feel. This feeling is particularly immanent for me in how I love, how I fall in or express love, when I am made to acknowledge that various versions of myself have been moulded by language and all that comes with it. This poem speaks specifically to my experience with love in the Korean language and the continued effects of war, colonialism and related personal and cultural history, despite being a generation away.

The poem is ultimately about growing out of these broken definitions of love and redefining it beyond language or history, into a personal one.– Kyo Lee

“For me, this disconnect between mine and my culture’s understanding of love is heightened by my queerness, especially at its existence as a difficult and sometimes criminal status in the Korean society and language. The present day homophobia in Korea is also largely rooted in Western imperialism and the Christian dominance that occurred during and after the Korean war which further confused my understanding of what love in Korean is/can be. However, the poem is ultimately about growing out of these broken definitions of love and redefining it beyond language or history, into a personal one. I like to think that the poem documents my journey as I learn the softer parts of love.

“A queer identity in Korea and how that might just change how people see me just like people who might love. My family and friends and what that might mean with my relationship with them and my relationship with love for other people and also for them. Despite the hardship that might come with it, I want it to be who I am.”

Despite the hardship that might come with it, I want it to be who I am.– Kyo Lee

Lee also plays with cliches and stereotypes people have of Korean culture. The stereotype of Asian women being submissive and delicate was partly the inspiration for lotus flower blooming into breasts.

“The lotus blossom trope, in Western media, is basically a term that portrays Asian women as delicate, submissive and attractive creatures, existing for the development of the white man who is the protagonist.”

The youngest ever CBC Poetry Prize winner

Lee is the youngest winner of the CBC Poetry Prize — and though she’s still in high school, she has been writing poetry for years. “Poetry is best defined by how it can’t be defined. But you know, for me it’s just about making other people appreciate the world a little bit more sometimes. My poems can be dismal, but in finding a tenderness or finding yourself in the poem, the ultimate goal is to make people love a little more.

“I’m overwhelmed with gratitude. Winning the prize is not something that I ever imagined happening. The phone call through which I was notified feels like a dream,” she told CBC Books. “It’s been a blessing to be reminded that there are stories that I can tell that matter to people.

“I don’t know where life will take me, but I hope that I will be writing through all of it.”

This year’s winner and finalists were selected by a jury comprised of Joseph A. Dandurand, Catherine Graham and Tolu Oloruntoba.

“In lotus flower blooming into breasts, the speaker holds hope, love, conflict, desire, defiance, history and the present, violence and wistfulness and the ways humans fail each other, in a shimmering tension that does not collapse into sentimentality. Documentary in nature, the tercets that constitute this poem offer confrontational and speculative flourishes that flare like ‘burns blooming’ beside ponds ‘overflowing with hunger.’ The efficiency of each line and the balletic twinge of each successive stanza are effective vehicles for admirable feats of craft and reader transport,” the jury said.

The efficiency of each line and the balletic twinge of each successive stanza are effective vehicles for admirable feats of craft and reader transport.– The 2023 CBC Poetry Prize jury

The other four finalists are Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm of Neyaashiinigmiing, Ont. for restitution OR Nanabush speaks to the settlers, Jillian Clasky of Ottawa., for Variations on Genesis, Jaclyn Desforges of Hamilton, Ont., for I Can Communicate If Communication Is Another Form of Sinking and Anna Swanson of Guelph, Ont., for Sweetness | מתיקות. They will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts.

A team of writers and editors from across Canada compiled a longlist from more than 2,400 submissions. 

The 2023 winner of the Prix de poésie Radio-Canada will be revealed live on Nov. 24, 2023 from the Salon du livre de Montréal.

Last year’s winner was Charlottetown poet Bren Simmers for her poetry collection Spell World Backwards. Other past CBC Literary Prize winners include Alison Pick, David Bergen, Michael Ondaatje and Carol Shields.

The CBC Literary Prizes have been recognizing Canadian writers since 1979. 

For Canadians interested in other CBC Literary Prizes, the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January and the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April. The CBC Short Story Prize will open in September.