Li-Young Lee is a poet of the interior life. To hear him speak
(as one can do at YouTube, where there is a video of him
discussing his poems and reading a few)
is to realize how 'self-conscious', in the best sense
of that word, he is. He has a theory (well, it may not be his own,
but he is obsessed with it nonetheless) that each intaken breath
is an act of life, since the air then enriches our blood,
hardens our bones, and gives us new strength,
while each exhaled breath softens our bones,
and therefore is akin to dying. Yet that 'dying' breath
is the one in which we communicate in speech.
To him, this communication 'ransoms' the death
incurred by exhaling. Thus all poetry is a form of ransoming
life from the jaws of death. Hmmm.
Out of Hiding
by Li-Young Lee
Someone said my name in the garden,
while I grew smaller
in the spreading shadow of the peonies,
grew larger by my absence to another,
grew older among the ants, ancient
under the opening heads of the flowers,
new to myself, and stranger.
When I heard my name again, it sounded far,
like the name of the child next door,
or a favorite cousin visiting for the summer,
while the quiet seemed my true name,
a near and inaudible singing
born of hidden ground.
Quiet to quiet, I called back.
And the birds declared my whereabouts all morning.
The Chinese painter and writer of the sixth century, Hsieh Ho, observed that a painting - and we are talking here about roll paintings that unwind as one meanders through the painter’s meditation - should have a spiritual movement of its own, the painter’s meditation becoming the viewer’s meditation. As we read Lee’s poems, we are invited into the meditation that produced the poem and from there to continue with our own meditations. The danger, of course, is that the poet may become too abstract and private for the reader to follow.
Why are we here? What is the relationship between body and soul? Is God immanence or eminence? Do we need to call the Life Force or “the tao” or the centering principle “God,” as do organized religions? How can we live our lives with reverence and care? How can we resolve conflicting feelings? How should we approach everyday objects and tasks? How should we make our peace with parents? What is the role of gender in life? To become whole, do we need to incorporate into our being the traditional male and female characteristics? How do we fit into nature? What does it mean to be a man? These are some of the questions, implicit and explicit, in Li-Young Lee’s unique, frequently extraordinary, poetry of the interior person. The answers, when there are answers, may well be pointing to the perspectives we will encounter more and more, as mainstream American literature comes to represent the great variety of the American ethos.
© Joyce Nower
