Li-Young Lee
Sad is the man who is asked for a story
His five-year-old son waits in his lap.
In a room full of books in a world
Already the man lives far ahead, he sees
But the boy is packing his shirts,
But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?
While the long grain is softening
She sits at the foot of the bed.
My mother combs,
But I know
To pull the metal splinter from my palm
I can't remember the tale,
Had you entered that afternoon
Look how I shave her thumbnail down
Lee, Li-Young. 1986. Rose
(Brockport, NY: BOA Editions, Ltd.)
Lee, Li-Young. 1990. The City in Which I Love
You (Brockport, NY: BOA Editions, Ltd.)
Lee, Li-Young. 1995. The Winged Seed: A
Rememberance (NY: Simon & Schuster)
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Li-Young Lee was born in 1957 in Jakarta, Indonesia, of Chinese
parents. In 1959, his father, after spending a year as a political
prisoner in President Sukarno's jails, fled Indonesia with his
family. Between 1959 and 1964 they traveled in Hong Kong, Macau,
and Japan, until arriving in America.
Mr. Lee studied at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of
Arizona, and the State University of New York, College at
Brockport. He has taught at various universities, including
Northwestern University and the University of Iowa. In 1990
Li-Young Lee traveled in China and Indonesia to do personal
research for a book of autobiographical prose.
Li-Young Lee's several honors include grants from the Illinois
Arts Council, The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania
Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In
1989 he was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation; in 1988 he was the recipient of a Writer's
Award from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation. In 1987 Mr. Lee
received New York University's Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry
Award for his first book, Rose, published by BOA Editions,
Ltd. in 1986; and The City in Which I Love You,
Li-Young Lee's second book of poems, was the 1990 Lamont Poetry
Selection of The Academy of American Poets. He has also won the
Lannan Literary Award.
A Story
and can't come up with one.
Not the same story, Baba. A new one.
The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.
of stories, he can recall
not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy
will give up on his father.
the day this boy will go. Don't go!
Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!
You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.
Let me tell it!
he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,
the man screams, that I sit mute before you?
Am I a god that I should never disappoint?
It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
an earthly rather than heavenly one,
which posits that a boy's supplications
and a father's love add up to silence.
-- Li-Young Lee, ©1990. Reproduced
from The City in Which I Love You, with kind permission of
BOA Editions, Ltd.
Early in the Morning
in the water, gurgling
over a low stove flame, before
the salted Winter Vegetable is sliced
for breakfast, before the birds,
my mother glides an ivory comb
through her hair, heavy
and black as calligrapher's ink.
My father watches, listens for
the music of comb
against hair.
pulls her hair back
tight, rolls it
around two fingers, pins it
in a bun to the back of her head.
For half a hundred years she has done this.
My father likes to see it like this.
He says it is kempt.
it is because of the way
my mother's hair falls
when he pulls the pins out.
Easily, like the curtains
when they untie them in the evening.
-- Li-Young Lee, ©1986. Reproduced
from Rose with the kind permission of
BOA Editions, Ltd.
The Gift
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.
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.
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy's palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife's right hand.
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he's given something to keep.
I kissed my father.
-- Li-Young Lee, ©1986. Reproduced
from Rose with the kind permission of BOA
Editions, Ltd.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Li-Young Lee:
"Early in the Morning" and "The Gift" copyright
© 1986 by Li-Young Lee. Reproduced from Rose, by
Li-Young Lee, with the permission of BOA Editions, Ltd., 92
Park Avenue, Brockport, NY 14420 USA. Li-Young Lee: "A
Story" copyright © 1990 by Li-Young Lee. Reproduced
from The City in Which I Love You, by Li-Young Lee,
with the permission of BOA Editions, Ltd., 92 Park Avenue,
Brockport, NY 14420 USA.
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