Li-Young Lee
By Elaine Magliaro
I fell in love with the poetry of Li-Young Lee when I read his debut collection Rose. Published in 1986, the book won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award. In the foreword that he wrote for Rose, Gerald Stern said that when he first came across Li-Young Lee’s poetry, he “was amazed by the large vision, the deep seriousness and the almost heroic ideal “reminiscent more of John Keats, Rainer Maria Rilke and perhaps Theodore Roethke than William Carlos Williams on the one hand or T.S. Eliot on the other.” Stern added that what characterizes Lee’s poetry “Is a certain humility, a kind of cunning, a love of plain speech, a search for wisdom and understanding…”
Stern also wrote in his foreword that the “father” in contemporary poetry “tends to be a pathetic soul or bungler or a sweet loser, overwhelmed by the demands of family and culture and workplace.” He said that the father in Lee’s poems isn’t anything like that. He said the “father” in Lee’s poetry is “more godlike”–and that the poet’s job “becomes not to benignly or tenderly forgive him, but to withstand him and comprehend him, and variously fear and love him.”
Lee’s second collection, The City in Which I Love You (1990), is a remembrance of the poet’s childhood…and his father. Writing in Publishers Weekly, reviewer Peggy Kaganoff said the book’s poetry “weaves a remarkable web of memory from the multifarious fibers of his experience.”
For Father’s Day, I have selected some poems from Li-Young Lee’s books Rose and The City in Which I Love You to share with you.
Excerpt from Eating Alone
Once, years back, I walked beside my father
among the windfall pears. I can’t recall
our words. We may have strolled in silence. But
I still see him bend that way-left hand braced
on knee, creaky-to lift and hold to my
eye a rotten pear. In it, a hornet
spun crazily, glazed in slow, glistening juice.
It was my father I saw this morning
waving to me from the trees. I almost
called to him, until I came close enough
to see the shovel, leaning where I had
left it, in the flickering, deep green shade.
Click here to read the rest of the poem.
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Excerpt from The Gift
To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.
I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.
Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Click here to read the rest of the poem.
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Excerpt from My Father, in Heaven, Is Reading Out Loud
My father, in heaven, is reading out loud
to himself Psalms or news. Now he ponders what
he’s read. No. He is listening for the sound
of children in the yard. Was that laughing
or crying? So much depends upon the
answer, for either he will go on reading,
or he’ll run to save a child’s day from grief.
As it is in heaven, so it was on earth.
Click here to read the rest of the poem.
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Two more of my favorite Li-Young Lee poems:
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Li-Young Lee
Li-Young Lee Reading ‘This Room & Everything in It’
SOURCES
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
Beautiful poems, Elaine. I recently read a little review on Lee poetry but never sought it out. Thanks for sharing.
Happy father’s day to all.
When I opened Google this morning and realized it was father’s day, it ruined my day. Know what I remember today? One month ago today, Fr. Shaefer giving my child Last Rites.
Chuck, if ever there is a day when she is sending her loving gaze from the heavens down upon you, or fluttering by your side, streaks of light in the shadows of your grief, it is today.
To quote Lee: “So much depends upon the
answer, for either she will go on exploring,
or she’ll run to save a father’s day from grief.
As it is in heaven, so it was on earth.”
Po,
Thank you. I am about to leave and go to the top of her favorite mountain. The Rhododendrons are in full bloom in the gardens at 6,285′ elevation. Hundred mile view when it’s clear. Sometimes I can also feel my wife’s presence there in the wind and the leaves.
Powerful stuff, Elaine.
Thanks for the introduction.
Happy Father’s Day to the dads. Chuck, sending virtual hugs your way.
I had a very nice and quiet Father’s Day with my daughter. None-the-less I had the image of Chuck Stanley’s loss in my mind as I conversed with my daughter and had to admit I was blessed, so far, with very good fortune. Dr Stanley’s open and heart felt description of his “Celtic Lassie” will never be far from my thoughts. The 25th of May is now embedded in my mind. It was a splendid rendition of a life well lived well loved and fought for to the end. I have no easy way of expressing my thoughts directly to Dr Stanley, so I am, once again, saying them here. I hope he doesn’t mind. I am not a “huggy” person, however, I must agree with I.Annie above…I’d hug him if I could because words would fail me. Let us all revere our children, for they are the future. Without them we’d not be fathers or mothers, nor have any future.
Aridog,
Thank you. It’s been more than tough. Her first dog was a German Shepherd named “Trooper.” He followed her everywhere. Even when he was old and cried out in pain at times, he would still leap up and follow her around the yard, never letting her get more than about two feet from him. Hate to think what would have happened if someone or something threatened her. She never completely got over losing him when we had to put him out of his misery after his hips got so bad the medicine no longer controlled his pain.
She loved her Pug, but always wanted another German Shepherd.
Chuck Stanley I certainly understand “Celtic Lassie’s” grief over losing her German Shepherd. Over the years I’ve had several pass away in my arms, some naturally, some euthanised. I tried to make it a point to always be there for them, even in the end days. I’ve never completely gotten over a single one of them, they all hold a warm spot in my memories. I know “Celtic Lassie” and “Trooper” will always be in yours as well. Your eloquence on FFS and especially the photo array on D-Kos said it all. Bless you for putting your experience in to words anyone could understand and more importantly, feel, as I have and will for a long time. I hope her pug can mourn and then move on to the rest of you.