The Polyglot: Founded in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta) in 2016, The Polyglot is a biannual online magazine devoted to publishing multilingual poetry and art. In their first ten issues, they have published 188 writers and artists working in 51 languages. In 2021, they were named Alberta’s Best New Magazine.

Kathryn Gwun-Yeen 君妍 Lennon (she/her/hers) was born and raised in Edmonton/Amiskwacîwâskahikan, with mixed Hong-Kong Cantonese and Irish ancestry. She is working on a bilingual book of poetry, thanks to support from the Edmonton Arts Council. She is the co-creator of Hungry Zine, a food-focused publication that centres voices missing in mainstream food media. She was a member of Edmonton’s 2012 Slam Poetry Team, and a member of the festival ensemble at the 2013 and 2015 Victoria Festival of Spoken Word. Her work has been published in Living Hyphen, the Globe and Mail, Ricepaper Magazine, the Ethnic Aisle, Spacing Magazine, and screened at the 2010 Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and the 2018 Bozeman International Film Festival.

I’m so happy to have found a (long-awaited) home for a piece I co-wrote with Wai-Ling Lennon, and Yilin Wang.

Thank you The Polyglot for including us in Issue 11: 用心 (yong sum). The Polyglot creates much needed space for understanding and exploring writing and art across languages.

Our collaboration is a poem I wrote, called 用心 (yong sum), its translation (by Wai-Ling Lennon 姚慧玲 @wailinglennon, and Yilin Wang 王艺霖@yilinwriter), and our behind the scenes conversation on a translation process that moved through English, Cantonese, and Mandarin.

And what a great honour to have our piece title the issue. In Cantonese, this phrase literally means effort, but also means using your heart together with your head.

I’ll also be reading this piece with my mom at “Food for Thought” and Edmonton Poetry Festival, this Saturday! https://www.eventbrite.ca/…/food-for-thought-tickets