Li-Young Lee’s Lyric Lunch

By Brian Kluepfel
Special to AsianWeek

Under the direction of former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Haas, UC Berkeley is presenting an all-star array of poets this fall in a reading series called Lunch Poems.

This past week featured a reading by Indonesian-born Li-Young Lee, called by American Poetry Review “among the finest young poets alive.” Lee’s reading on a rainy East Bay afternoon nonetheless filled the Morrison Library on the Berkeley campus with over 200 students and poetry lovers.

Lee has published several collections of poetry, including The City in Which I Love You and Book of My Nights, as well his own memoir, The Winged Seed, which recounts his family’s flight from China to Indonesia, and eventually to America. It is the poetry, however, for which the 45-year-old Illinois resident is known, and he read eight different selections, with commentary between them.

In “Have You Prayed?” he offered an apology to his late father, who always asked him that question in the morning. “I lied about that, and many things, but I never felt guilty until now,” said Lee. He addressed the next generation, his son and nephew in particular, with “Every Wise Child is Sad,” which reminds the listener that a child “doesn’t know what a minute weighs.”

Lee spoke of his own particular feelings about language before reading “Preface to a Conversation.” He explained that he always argued with a friend about the use of words, and in “Preface” he continually asks the friend “what do you mean by…”

“I sometimes think that one of the wonderful things language can do is reflect inner space so that we can experience it as something visceral,” said Lee.

He revealed a sly humor in discussing his poetry about birds. “Sometimes I think they’re wonderful, and sometimes I think they’re just bugs with wings!” he said. His poem “Praise Them” focused on his admiration for the flighted creatures, and as the bleak afternoon rained down outside, he read of “how three birds in a winter tree make it barer.” “Praise Them” reminded the listener that “their singing completes us.”

Lee spoke of his own definition of metaphor before reading “A Table in the Wilderness.”

“Metaphor, to me, is a way to integrate incompatible psychic concepts, like honeycombs and time,” he said, and “Table” did just that. He used further metaphor in “Black Petal,” a poem about his younger brother’s death, saying “a flower was never meant to survive the fruit.” But in Lee’s work his deceased family members do not depart, they hover around him: his father’s voice on the wind, his brother talking to him in his sleep.

In his final poem, “Poor Shadow,” Lee told the audience that he could join their spirits, concluding “I can trade places with the wind.”

“He’s very lyrical,” said Grace Grafton of California Poets in the Schools, who attended the reading. “I like how he started by comparing the outgoing breath, the dying breath, to the poet’s breath. But remember, in dying, we create new life,” said Grafton.

On a grey afternoon just after the Day of the Dead and All Souls' Day, with the cold of winter approaching, Li-Young Lee brought the spirits of past and present together for those willing to brave the chill.