Li-Young Lee

Li-Young Lee was born in Djakarta, Indonesia in 1957 to Chinese political exiles. Both of Lee’s parents came from powerful Chinese families: Lee’s great grandfather was the first president of the Republic of China, and Lee’s father had been the personal physician to Mao Tse-tsung. In Indonesia, Dr. Lee helped found Gamaliel University. Anti-Chinese sentiment began to foment in Indonesia, however, and Lee’s father was arrested and held as a political prisoner for a year. After his release, the Lee family fled through Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan, arriving in the United States in 1964. (He was seven years of age at that time.)
Excerpt from his biography at the Poetry Foundation.
Being a brief study of the poems of Li-Young Lee.
Li-Young Lee’s poetry became the focal point for my RWP cento poem study series.

     

Li-Young Lee poems

A Table in the Wilderness

Pillow

Immigrant Blues *

A Hymn to Childhood *

Valentine’s with a Straight Face (audio program)
   Being an interview, including Li-Young Lee’s readings of two poems,
   Immigrant Blues and A Hymn to Childhood. *

Arise, Go Down

Early in the Morning

Eating Together

Falling, The Code

Little Father

From Blossoms

Have You Prayed

Persimmons

Lee has said that he considers every poem to be a “descendent of God.” When asked about flawed poems by Poets and Writers, Lee explained: “There are great poems that have flaws. There are failures of perception, failures of understanding, but those flaws become a part of the poem’s integrity, so I still feel that those poems are descendants of God. (continued excerpt from the Poetry Foundation biography)

• Rose, BOA Editions (Brockport, NY), 1986.
• The City in Which I Love You, BOA Editions (Brockport, NY), 1990.
• Book of My Nights, BOA Editions (Brockport, NY), 2001.
• Behind My Eyes, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2009.