Li-Young Lee Report

Perhaps rather than the cliched Shakespearean question of "what's in a name?", people should be inquiring, "what's in a background?". For poets, the answer most certainly is reflected by their work and a heavy influence of their style, focus and interests. Li-Young Lee is no exception. Born in Indonesia to Chinese parents, Lee spent much of his early life on the run. His parents had formed a doomed union from the start, being that his mother was the daughter of the first president of the Republic of China and his father was the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, it seemed, his family being associated with Chinese gangs and shady dealings. Although his father was actually an important doctor, Lee's parents were exiled from China and moved to Indonesia during Lee's infancy. His father, while an esteemed physician as a well of a founder of Gamaliel University in Indonesia, was subject to harsh anti-Chinese beliefs that were beginning to develop in Indonesia, as was the entire Lee family. It wasn't until 1964 that the 7-year-old Lee's family, who had been on the move for five years, finally settled in the United States. All of this proves relevant because Lee, who hadn't started talking till a late age anyway, stopped speaking once his family relocated to the US. Embarrassed by his inability to speak the language, Lee's only friends were other refugee children who also spoke different languages. Their similarities and connections lay in their mutual inabilities to communicate.

And so it was that Lee was no stranger to feelings of exile, isolation and loneliness, themes that make a strong appearance throughout much of his poetry. The theme of family is also a very present one among Lee's collections; his poems often discuss the topic of his father's own tenderness and their relationship, as well as speaking of his mother, their family tradition, and then his own relationship with his wife and feelings of being a father.

Much of the beauty in Lee's poetry exists because of the way he treats his poems- as "descendants of God." He has been revered for his use of "silence" in poetry, as well as for the near-mystical quality many of his poems have. Perhaps the very greatest quality of Lee's poetry is in its rawness and  unequivocal  humanness. He writes about the blasé every-day mundanities of life in such a way that makes them seem fresh and incredible. 

In Lee's poem "Braiding", he manages to not only make an every-day activity seem exotic and beautiful, but also to draw deep connections from his routine with his own love to that of his parents before him. He writes of sitting with his wife, gently combing and braiding her hair in such a potent way that the reader feels that they are there, in the room, intruding on some incredibly intimate moment of Lee's life. The line, "My father did this for my mother,/ just as I do for you," speaks volumes about how much it really means to Lee to be able to do this with his wife, as he remembers it being a tradition his own parents shared when he was growing up. That line alone sums up a lot of what is so incredible about Lee's family: it's deep intimacy, simplicity and focus on family and heritage. 

He also writes very frankly, yet reverently about sex, and manages to weave in much of what is saying with thinly-veiled Biblical references, as exampled in these lines from "The City in Which I Love You": "My tongue remembers your wounded flavor./ The vein in my neck/ adores you. A sword/ stands up between my hips,/ my hidden fleece sends forth its scent of human oil." His gentle pacing and employment of powerful, carefully chosen language, bring to mind the suggestion that his poems are so wonderful because of their use of "silence." To put a finger on Lee's ability to this is difficult, and yet, when one reads his poems, it is very obvious that this assessment is true. His work does have some remarkable, almost unnameable quality that conjures up silence, peace and calm; quiet, and waiting. The reader cannot help but feel at rest while reading his reverent words, even though he speaks of searching for his lover and passionately needing to be with her and to "have" her. Sometimes, when reading, it is possible to slip for a moment and wonder if one is not reading the words of King Solomon himself from the Biblical passages in Song of Songs. 

In poems such as, "I Ask My Mother To Sing" and "For A New Citizen Of These United States", Lee's strong connections to his heritage and his unusual and difficult upbringing as a refugee are evident. In "I Ask My Mother To Sing," he writes of his mother and grandmother, singing together songs the events of which he does not know, but still adores hearing about. "I've never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,/ nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch/ the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the picknickers/ running away in the grass. And yet from the way Lee writes, it is hard to believe he hasn't seen all these sights himself; he seems so knowledgable and quietly impassioned about them. The  poem ends with his mother and grandmother coming to tears together, but continuing to sing of their people. In "For A New Citizen Of These United States," Lee speaks, as if to another refugee child like himself, pleading with the other not to be sad if he cannot remember all of the things of his heritage and home. He writes, "But birds, as you say, fly forward./ So I won't show you the letters and the shawl/ I've so meaninglessly preserved./ And I won't hum along, if you don't, when/ our mothers sing Nights in Shanghai./" Lee writes so tenderly and beautifully about moving on from his heritage and letting go of the pieces he has held on to as he becomes a citizen of the US, that one cannot help but feel a clenching of his own heart as he considers the pain and confusion Lee must have endured as a small boy, not really sure what country or home to latch onto as his own.

After even just a mild examination of Lee's poetry, it becomes quite obvious why he is so acclaimed as a writer of faith, home, heritage, family, love and the ever-present silence. It seems that few could measure up to Lee's immeasurable ability to pace his words, though he speaks of history, of sorrow, pain, loss or passion; there is always a certain calmness lying underneath and even in confusion, a simple understanding. For one who has suffered so much pain and uprooting throughout his life, Lee has certainly done something beautiful with all his suffering, and turned it into poetry that sings, that pays homage and devotion, that lifts up souls before placing them gently back down on earth again.