06/05/15

Arisara Ketnute
Part 1: Poet Biography
Li Yong Lee was a famous American poet. He was born in Djakarta, Indonesia at
19th August 1957. His parent was Chinese, which both of them came from Chinese
powerful family. His mother was granddaughter of Yuan Shi-kai, who is first President of
China while his father was son of gangster and entrepreneur. His parents marriage
happened among disagreement of communist party, so this is the reason that his parent
moved to Indonesia and gave birth him there. In Indonesia, his father helped found
Gamaliel Univesity, where he became teacher and taught medical and philosophy. During
anti Chinese sentiment played role in Indonesia, Lees father was arrested and held as a
political prisoner for a year. (Poetryfoundation.org). After Lees father was released, his
family escaped through Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan for five year until they decide to
live in United States in 1964.
In Pittsburgh University, he had chance to study with Gerald Stern, who was
famous American poet, which has been called as American original and the wilderness
in American poetry. So Lee started write poem when he was being student of Pittsburgh
University. His debut collection was rose, which was release in 1986. Then The City in
Which I Love You, the second collection release in 1990. Both of his first collection got
praise and acceptance from famous poets a lot. His other popular poems such as The
Winged Seed: A Remembrance, which was released in 1995 and Book of My Nights,
which was released in 2001. Lees poems also won many prizes and popularity, showed
as The Winged Seed: A Remembrance (Simon and Schuster, 1995), a memoir which
received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, Book of
My Nights (BOA Editions, 2001), which won the 2002 William Carlos Williams Award;

The City in Which I Love You (BOA Editions, 1990), which was the 1990 Lamont Poetry
Selection; and Rose (BOA Editions, 1986), which won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial
Poetry Award. (Academy of American Poets)
His style is passionate poetry. He also used history of his childhood as
backgrounds of his poem. Many of his poems were used in study books for student. Now
Lee still has events while he is living with his family in Chicago. In present although Lee
did not release his new work but people still remember his name and his poems.

Part 2: Analysis

A Story
Li-Young Lee, 1957
Sad is the man who is asked for a story
and cant come up with one.
His five-year-old son waits in his lap.
Not the same story, Baba. A new one.
The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.
In a room full of books in a world
of stories, he can recall
not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy
will give up on his father.
Already the man lives far ahead, he sees
the day this boy will go. Dont go!
Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!
You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.
Let me tell it!
But the boy is packing his shirts,
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?
But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?
It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
an earthly rather than heavenly one,
which posits that a boys supplications
and a fathers love add up to silence.
Li-Young Lee, A Story from The City In Which I Love You. Copyright
1990 by Li-Young Lee. Used with the permission of The Permissions
Company, Inc., on behalf of BOA Editions, Ltd., boaeditions.org.

Story is title of Lees poem that I chose. I chose it because I

really like this poem. I like poem that be full of emotional and feeling. I

cannot say that it is a sad poem and it not a happy poem too. Hope
and fear are two words to describe this poem. These two feeling is
difference almost opposite in term of feeling, but in term of how to feel,
it is similarity. Hope and fear make your deep feeling always consider
to it, like the way to dream. For bad dream, you usually dream
somethings that you fear in deep, something that you do not want it,
while for good dream, you usually dream something that you hope and
really want it to real happen. This poem like a dream, bad dream
nonetheless he in this poem wake up and face with reality, which is
better till best feeling than the dream.
Lee did not use rhyme or play with words same as his other work.
He usually uses the word silence in his poem. He likes to explain
feeling of his poem from silence so he did not tell directly what poem
feels, but he express feeling through the story of his poem through his
character. Behind his story is the true feeling, which he may want to
express and behind the feeling is the true story, which was hided even
it exist in reality may be in his life or not. He used Rhetorical Question
A question solely for effect, which does not require an answer. By the
implication the answer is obvious, it is a means of achieving an
emphasis stronger than a direct statement. (California Federation of
Chaparral Poets, Inc.) Lee is also good in using imagery. For this poem, he
create image so clearly, the image that his son of this story sit on his
lap. The image that the man thinks his son give up on him this makes
he so sad and so disappoint with himself. He cannot do anything and
cannot say anything for asked his son for stay. This feeling is very

crumbed and terrible. It like a bad dream but it is good for him because
it is not a true. This poem like white become gray then change to
yellow when he come back to the true. This poem is so passionate poem,
which is so strong and beautiful.

Reference:
Poetry Foundation. (2010). Poems & Poets: Li-Young Lee. Retrieved
from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/li-young-lee [Sunday, 10th May,
2015]
Zhou. (). Li-Young Lee (b. 1957). Retrieved from
http://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/conte
mporary/lee_li.html [Sunday, 10th May, 2015]
Academy of American Poets. (n.d.). Poet: Li-Young Lee. Retrieved from
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/li-young-lee [Sunday, 10th May, 2015]
Academy of American Poets. (n.d.). Poem: Story. Retrieved from
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/story-0 [Tuesday, 12th May, 2015]
California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc. (2014). Poetic Device. 1-9. Retrieved
from http://www.chaparralpoets.org/devices.pdf [Thursday, 14th
May, 2015]