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Lee published his poem in 1986, but his influences include classical Chinese poets such as Lil Bai and Du Fu. Lee’s sober and contemplative voice is in many classical Chinese poems. Lee’s emphasis on nature—the rain and the waterlilies—reinforces the link between his poem and poems from ancient China. Many classical Chinese poets took up the theme of nature. Du Fu focuses on the Jo River and winter in “Farewell to My Soldier-Friend.” Lil Bai notes the autumn, the moon, and, like Lee, waterlilies in his poem “The Green Water.”
“I Ask My Mother to Sing” was a part of Lee’s 1986 collection, Rose. In his forward, Gerald Stern distanced Lee from the 20th-century American poet William Carlos Williams; yet Lee’s poem has much in common with the poetry of Williams. Williams was associated with a literary movement known as Imagism. Besides Williams, Imagism featured poets like Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell. Imagists believed that the best poetry conveyed images using exact, no-frills language. Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” (1913) and Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow” (1923) are two well-known examples of Imagist poems.
Lee’s poem is in conversation with the Imagist tradition.
By Li-Young Lee
Early in the Morning
Early in the Morning
Li-Young Lee
Eating Alone
Eating Alone
Li-Young Lee
Eating Together
Eating Together
Li-Young Lee
From Blossoms
From Blossoms
Li-Young Lee
Persimmons
Persimmons
Li-Young Lee
The Gift
The Gift
Li-Young Lee
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