Li-Young Lee: his poetry and books of poems

	Li-Young Lee: notes on his reading of some poems and answers to some questions in San Jose, November 2003 Behind my Eyes (2008).
Buy: Rose	Rose (1986) by Li-Young Lee. His first (and many call it his best) poetry collection.
Buy: City in Which I Love You	City in Which I Love You (1990) by Li-Young Lee. A lyrical memoir of childhood and youth in privilege in pre-revolutionary China, in Mao Zedong's China (his father was Mao's physician), Indonesia (where Li-Young Lee was born in 1957 and his direct experiences began), Hong Kong, and the U.S.A. (where he arrived in 1964).
Buy: The Winged Seed	The Winged Seed: A Remembrance (1999) by Li-Young Lee. Published as written, without revision.
Buy: Book of My Nights	Book of My Nights: Poems (American Poets Continuum, 67) (2001) by Li-Young Lee.

His work appears in:
Best American Poetry: 2016 (guest editor Edward Hirsch) with "Folding a Five-Cornered Star So the Corners Meet".

Highlights of Poetry. Index of poetry. How to Write Poetry. Books read.

How to write specific forms: Haibun. Haiku. Hay(na)ku. Rengay. Tanka. Ballade. Concrete. Ghazal. Lai. Pantoum. Prose poem. Rondeau. Rubáiyát. Sestina. Skaldic verse. Sonnet. Tanka. Terza rima. Triolet. Tritina. Villanelle.

Poets: Adam Zagajewski. Aleda Shirley. Anne Carson. Bashō. The Beowulf Poet. Billy Collins. Billy Collins exercise. Snorri's Edda. Carl Dennis. Charles Atkinson. Chase Twichell. Corey Marks. François Villon Franz Wright. Galway Kinnell. Gary Young. The Gawain Poet. J. D. McClatchy. J. Zimmerman. J. Zimmerman (haiku). J. Zimmerman (tanka). Jack Gilbert. Jane Hirshfield. Jean Vengua. Jorie Graham. Karen Braucher. Karl Shapiro. Kay Ryan. Laureate Poets: Britain; USA. Len Anderson. Les Murray. Li-Young Lee (and Li-Young Lee reading 2003). Linda Pastan. Louise Glück. Marianna Monaco (haiku). Mary Oliver. Nordic Skalds. Pulitzer Poetry Prize (U.S.A). Rainer Maria Rilke Richard Hugo. Robert Bly. Sappho. Sara Teasdale. Shiki (haiku). Snorri's Edda. Stephen Dunn. Ted Kooser. W.S. Merwin.

Behind My Eyes

• His fifth book.
• Cover of the hardback first edition is a remarkable photograph by Raymond Gehman of an island that looks like a closed eye — eyelashes and all.
• Presented in three untitled sections.
• Emphasizes include memoir disguised as surrealism; some use of simile and more use of metaphor; some use of synesthesia, such as (from "Lake Effect"):

  The lake keeps changing its mind, undecided between the word for the end of August and the color just before grapes ripen. © Li-Young Lee

• Favorite poems include:
  • "Mother Deluxe" (section 1).
  • "Have You Prayed" (section 1).
  • "My Favorite Kingdom" (section 2).
  • "My Mother's Apple" (section 2).
  • "Station" (section 3).

• Acknowledges first publications in:
  • Lyric
  • Poetry
  • Orion
  • The Pushcart Prize XXXII: Best of the Small Presses
  • Runes
  • Speakeasy
  • River Styx
  • Spirituality and Health
  • World Literature Today

• Sample statistics:
  • Relatively few sensual words. A convenience sample of 10 poems (the first and the third poem thereafter) shows:
    • sound: in 90% of poems; includes mainly pedestrian words like 'said' and 'tells' and 'asked' and 'voices' (in contrast with Aleda Shirley's words: hum, whistle, chirp, etc.).
    • touch: in 30%-70% (depending on how explicit is the touch); includes 'barefoot step', 'lying between her legs', and 'leaves blown in a wind'.
    • color: in 40% of poems; includes blue, gold, silver, white.
    • taste: in 20% of poems; includes grapes, apples.
    • smell: in 0% of poems.
  • 39 poems, 87 pages of text, average of 2.2 pages per poem.
  • For pages per poem, the mode is 2 pages (15 poems); the longests is one 9-page poem (divided in 5 sections).
  • Stanzas per poem: only 3 (8%) are a single stanza. Most have half a dozen (or more) short stanzas.
  • Lines per stanza: (rough count) are most commonly 2 or 3 lines, (with 4 lines and 5 lines as next most common). While the stanzas are of inconsistent size and none is written as a tanka, yet their size as well as their guarded passions give some poems the feeling of a series of tanka-like links.

Includes poems that he read in his 2003 San Jose reading:

1. "Have you Prayed?" (p. 23).

2. "Become Becoming" (p. 21).

3. "Station" (p. 104).
   A meditation on the "Your Attention Please" announcements over the loudspeaker in the Chicago railway station. This poem, with its repeated phrases, reminds me of the way a ghazal repeats a phrase.

4. "First World" (p. 48).
   ["Sister, we died in childhood, remember. Into birds we died ... we died and I've been sowing grass and flowers ever since."]

Time Line.

1957

Born to Chinese parents in Indonesia.

1964

Arrived in the U.S.A. with his parents and began living in Chicago.

1986

Poetry Collection: Rose. Li-Young Lee's first (and many call it his best) poetry collection.

1990

City in Which I Love You. A lyrical memoir of childhood and youth in privilege in pre-revolutionary China, in Mao Zedong's China (his father was Mao's physician), Indonesia (where Li-Young Lee was born in 1957 and his direct experiences began), Hong Kong, and the U.S.A. (where he arrived in 1964).

1999

2nd Poetry Collection: The Winged Seed: A Remembrance. Published as written, without revision (he claims).

2001

3rd Poetry Collection: Book of My Nights: Poems (American Poets Continuum, 67).

2008

Poetry Collection: Behind My Eyes.

How to Write Your Poetry. Books of Poetry Form. Alphabetic list of poetry forms and related topics. Books on Writing Your Poetry. Poetry Index.

Copyright © 2003-2016 by J. Zimmerman, except for work quoted from other writers. The quoted poems are Copyright © 2003-2015 by Li-Young Lee.

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