Li-Young LeeReseñas

Very telling poems about the authors experience of totalitarian Malaysian government and his immigration to the US. Poems are written from his meaning to these events. I learned how to read them in a poetry class. An excellent selection to learn about poetry.

I quite like this collection, maybe because I'm reading backwards through his oeuvre and have different expectations. The Cleaving is breathtaking.

"But in poetry just by nature, we're using language as silence."

One of the many things I love about this collection.

I always find it near impossible to rate good poetry; it's such a personal thing that even if I tell you all the things I found good about it, you would take something completely different away from reading it. I can tell you that this collection of poems made me think, made me reflect on my life, made me see things from another point of view. And I enjoyed the experience. Beyond that, you would need to discover it for yourself.

Not for me/over my head. I'm not a big fan of poetry, so finishing this guy's poetic memoir, published without ever having been revised, caused me pain.

Where is he writing from? Where does he go when he writes these poems? I have no idea. Some of these lines made me perplexed, as if they are spoken from a place where the concept of "sky" and "shadow" and "death" are completely different. I looked at the lines "Death creates a blind spot. / Man is a secret, blind to himself," "Sister, we died in childhood, remember? / Into birds we died, into their flying," "A clock the bees unearth, / gathering the overspilled minutes." over and over.. Some of these poems were truly breathtaking for me. Reading the poems really made me feel the totality of how poetry is a spiritual practice for him (as opposed to an aesthetic practice for many others). The poems are mystical. Subdued power. Incomprehensible like very old runes. I think with him, poetry becomes something otherworldly. An experience. I turn the last page and return to the world, and for some reason, the realm within his pages was so much bigger, more wondrous, than the world I am in now.

2010 (my review can be found on the LibraryThing post linked)
http://www.librarything.com/topic/90167#2110578

Full review at Little Book Jockey. I've never been that great at analyzing poetry, so I won't even try. This is the best book I've read so far this year.

Re-reading for National Poetry Month 2018. I think I read this before when I was in college, though I'm not exactly sure on the dates.

I really enjoy this volume of poetry. The images and feelings it evokes are very strong and striking, and though they aren't the kind of poems I want to memorize, they are enjoyable to revisit.

I imagine drinking a lot of tea while reading Behind My Eyes. I didn't but it would've felt right as Lee wraps playful and theologically weighty symbolism into quite common, mundane experiences. It was light, artful, but the poems lacked a gravitas that I appreciate, that hits me in the gut.

An excellent collection by a contemporary poet.

Not as good as Rose but still worth reading.

Lee's poems are consistently stunning, pulling together careful observation, powerful language, and graceful moments in any given line and stanza. Falling into his work is something like journeying into another space and another mind, his poems are each, from beginning to end, so carefully constructed. And yet, they seem effortless, and they are readable and engaging. Few poems in this collection are not stand-outs, and in most collections, any of these poems would leap from the pages and demand attention and re-reading.

Simply, Lee's work is powerful and forever worth reading, forever worth sharing.

Recommended.

EATING TOGETHER

In the steamer is the trout
seasoned with slivers of ginger,
two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.
We shall eat it with rice for lunch,
brothers, sister, my mother who will
taste the sweetest meat of the head,
holding it between her fingers
deftly, the way my father did
weeks ago. Then he lay down
to sleep like a snow-covered road
winding through pines older than him,
without any travelers, and lonely for no one.


Li-Young Lee's poems are beautiful and meditative. His poems really capture the sublime characteristic of nature as well as the tenderness of moments between family members. Many of his poems are taken from the eyes of a child, reflecting on moments that have stayed clear in his mind for many years. An exquisite collection of memories and perfectly crafted words and meditations.

At turns heartbreaking and at other moments humorous, Lee always presents his poems with lyrical and haunting detail, impressing upon readers the importance of a single given moment. I'd read many of these poems in the past (a few have been included in more than one anthology), but this was my first time reading the collection as a single long work. And, in the end, this is one of those collections that calls to be read as a whole. With cycles of references to flowers, to the power of memory, and to the simple sound and gift of rain, the poems come together with a larger power than any one of them holds alone. Yet, Lee's elegant style is translated as well into each single poem. Each is accessible, worthwhile, and memorable on its own. There is no filler here, and much to enjoy for both casual readers and long-time lovers of poetry alike. Absolutely, this is recommended, and of those poetry books that I'll pass on both to friends who haven't yet found Lee's work (rare as they may be), and to that reader who might just be considering a venture into pleasure-reading poetry. This full collection is one I'll return to.

Read in memory of [a:Judith I. Gleason|165997|Judith I. Gleason|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66-251a730d696018971ef4a443cdeaae05.jpg], who introduced me to Lee's work.

Spare but nonetheless moving, Lee's collection of poems draw on his background as the child of immigrant parents, his curiosity about the past, the conflict between a desire to assilimlate and a struggle against it.

It seems like a full book of interviews with a single author might be too repetitive to be worthwhile; in fact, I imagine that's what had me putting this collection off as long as I did. Because I'm a fan of Li-Young Lee's work though, I finally got around to picking it up...and found a pleasant surprise. While the interviews do at times cover some same ground (though not much), the arrangement and inclusion of the given interviews allow for each interview to cover the territory from different angles and with different developments. Thus, repetition is at a bare minimum, and the book as a whole does work as a fully formed collection. Lee's thoughtful and thorough responses to questions allow readers insight into various aspects of his work and writing philosophies, and inclusions of snatches of poems and discussions of other writers bring extra depth along the way.

While I am familiar with Lee's work, I think this book would be incredibly worthwhile for not only Lee's fans, but for any writer. For me, the most worthwhile and fascinating passages here are those where Lee discusses his feelings on writing and his understanding of a writer's place in the world. Certainly, I'd recommend these interviews to my creative writing students and to my writing friends---I found the book both thought-provoking and inspiring, and I'm sure I'll come back to it in the future.½

Behind My Eyes is the new collection of poems by Li-Young Lee. If one has read any of his previous work they are expecting spare, beautiful, lyric poetry, and that reader will not be disappointed. I recently discovered Lee while browsing the poetry section of a local book store. I picked up his Book Of My Nights and read a few poems and decided the book was worth buying. One of the nice things about poetry is that you are able to get the general feel of a book from a few poems and decide whether or not to take a chance. It was well worth they money spent, especially as there are poems I have already read several times.

On a recent drive through Southern Vermont we stopped at Bartleby's Books in Wilmington and I discovered a copy of his latest collection, Behind My Eyes, which I bought without hesitation. I have yet to read his earlier works, though they are on my to do list.

...His Body throws two shadows:
One onto the table
and the piece of paper before him,
and one onto his mind.

One makes it difficult for him to see
the words he's written and crossed out
on the paper. The other
keeps him from recognizing
another master than Death. He squints.
He reads: Does the first light hide
inside the first dark?

He reads: While all bodies share
the same fate, all voices do not.
from: In His Own Shadow

The voice here echoes his earlier work in Book Of My Nights, but his voice is more diverse in this new collection, with greater breadth, and, as the quote above might indicate, greater awareness of his own importance as a voice in contemporary poetry. Lee's voice is soft spoken and spiritual, beautiful and profound, spare and deep, intensely personal and intensely universal. These are poems of pain, of love, of loss, of dialogue, of experience, of family; and behind it all a sense of profound wisdom, like an orchid where each blossom is unique yet each a part of the whole plant, opening successively upon a quivering branch.

To see what Lilia Pilia says about Li-Young Lee click here, and what Ivan Granger has to say here. Here is an article on Behind My Eyes from when it first came out last year.

Honestly, I expected to like this a lot more than I actually did. Some of the poems are amazing, but the majority of them felt cliche and a bit drab. Maybe I'll reread this later and see if I change my mind.

This is Lee's first collection of poetry, which won the New York University's 1986 Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award. The poems are delicate and beautiful, yet powerful and deeply emotional, and use imagery to describe the love he has for his parents and his wife. A representative example is The Gift:

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 I 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.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife's right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down
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.

Highly recommended.½

Two of my favorite poems reside in this book. The Gift and From Blossoms. But to be truthful, almost any poem from this book is beautiful and thought provoking. In my mind, this is Li-Young Lee's best (that I've read!). Get it!½

All of Li-Young Lee's poetry is wonderful. I think Lee has developed even more in subsequent books.

Although he's a very good reader, and definitely a wonderful man (as a previous reviewer noted), I find his poetry highly simplistic. I just don't feel it has the depth that many people seem to think it does.

I felt as if I was reading poetry by a particularly insightful five-year-old. But my taste is unusual. Give me some Wallace Stevens.

Well rendered and moving poetry. The fine traditions of Chinese poetry are brought forth in fine American poetry.