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lsparrow's review against another edition
2.0
was hoping to like this more however I did not feel like I could really get into the poems and I found myself drifting away. I tried to listen to the author reading the poems but it was no better - it just felt like random words put together.
ubepandesol's review against another edition
Sends 2000 digital lovenotes to my local library for being the MVP once again--thank you for having a copy of this [+CD] the experience of simultaneously listening to Lee reading his poems and reading his poems myself is such an exquisite, unforgettable one. A delightful year-ender for sure.
katvi's review against another edition
Like shards of colored glass from a window, Li-Young Lee leaves pieces of memories from his past to haunt each of his poems. To piece together the whole requires the delicate reading of all of his subtly elusive poetry.
In “Furious Versions” there are seven different poems that build upon one another. Each one illuminates the next and encircles one another. In the first one, we learn that he is a professor, husband, and father, and that his father took him to America in 1958. In the third one we learn that his father was killed by a corporal even though his mother tried to hide him. We learn that his father was a kind and generous man; a religious leader that others looked up to. Most of the poetry is about the death of his father and how he has been affected by it; he cannot see the world the way it once was now that his eyes are open to the corruption of society. “How then, may I speak of flowers here, where a world of forms convulses….Here now, one should say nothing of three flowers, only enter with them in silence, fear, and hope, into the next nervous one hundred human years.” He is telling his personal tragedy through his poetry in fragmented memories that haunt the soul and heap layers of emotion one upon the other until the whole story of his and his father’s life is revealed. His fragmented style only adds to the suspense, drama, and pensive tone of the mood expressed in his poetry.
Like Yeats, his poetry is never really finished. His poetry contains transferable representations that different eras can connect with, not immobile representations like mythology. He uses imagery and personification in his poetry that transcends time and space so that anyone can understand what he is writing about. I like the adjectives he uses to describe different things. In the last poem, he writes that this is a “new and murderous century.” Coupled with his previous description of “the next nervous one hundred years” he is expressing his doubts about the success of the human race in the next century. Because of all that has happened to him and his father, it is difficult to imagine the world becoming a better place; it seems only to be getting worse. These are his observations about the world and one of the things he is commenting on in his poetry. His poetry is complex and convoluted; it is heaving with images, memories, and emotion, and it is a testimony of his beliefs and anxiety about the world.
In “Furious Versions” there are seven different poems that build upon one another. Each one illuminates the next and encircles one another. In the first one, we learn that he is a professor, husband, and father, and that his father took him to America in 1958. In the third one we learn that his father was killed by a corporal even though his mother tried to hide him. We learn that his father was a kind and generous man; a religious leader that others looked up to. Most of the poetry is about the death of his father and how he has been affected by it; he cannot see the world the way it once was now that his eyes are open to the corruption of society. “How then, may I speak of flowers here, where a world of forms convulses….Here now, one should say nothing of three flowers, only enter with them in silence, fear, and hope, into the next nervous one hundred human years.” He is telling his personal tragedy through his poetry in fragmented memories that haunt the soul and heap layers of emotion one upon the other until the whole story of his and his father’s life is revealed. His fragmented style only adds to the suspense, drama, and pensive tone of the mood expressed in his poetry.
Like Yeats, his poetry is never really finished. His poetry contains transferable representations that different eras can connect with, not immobile representations like mythology. He uses imagery and personification in his poetry that transcends time and space so that anyone can understand what he is writing about. I like the adjectives he uses to describe different things. In the last poem, he writes that this is a “new and murderous century.” Coupled with his previous description of “the next nervous one hundred years” he is expressing his doubts about the success of the human race in the next century. Because of all that has happened to him and his father, it is difficult to imagine the world becoming a better place; it seems only to be getting worse. These are his observations about the world and one of the things he is commenting on in his poetry. His poetry is complex and convoluted; it is heaving with images, memories, and emotion, and it is a testimony of his beliefs and anxiety about the world.
seapeanut's review against another edition
Behind My Eyes: Poems by Li-Young Lee (2008)
annajoyreed93's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
The Undressing by Li-Young Lee absolutely enchanted me. This collection didn’t flow as well for me overall, but there were many poems I loved.
“So we’re dust. In the meantime, my wife and I
make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet,
we raise it, billowing, then pull it tight,
measuring by eye as it falls into alignment
between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I’m lucky,
she’ll remember a recent dream and tell me.
One day we’ll lie down and not get up.
One day, all we guard will be surrendered.
Until then, we’ll go on learning to recognize
what we love, and what it takes
to tend what isn’t for our having.
So often, fear has led me
to abandon what I know I must relinquish
in time. But for the moment,
I’ll listen to her dream,
and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling
more and more detail into the light
of a joint and fragile keeping.”
To Hold, pg. 98
“So we’re dust. In the meantime, my wife and I
make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet,
we raise it, billowing, then pull it tight,
measuring by eye as it falls into alignment
between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I’m lucky,
she’ll remember a recent dream and tell me.
One day we’ll lie down and not get up.
One day, all we guard will be surrendered.
Until then, we’ll go on learning to recognize
what we love, and what it takes
to tend what isn’t for our having.
So often, fear has led me
to abandon what I know I must relinquish
in time. But for the moment,
I’ll listen to her dream,
and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling
more and more detail into the light
of a joint and fragile keeping.”
To Hold, pg. 98
itschlve's review
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
Reminded me of Lee Ungo paintings somehow
The rest of my life I wondered: Are there dreams that help us to understand the past? Or is any looking back a waste of time, the whole of it a too finely woven net of innumerable conditions, causes, effects, countereffects, impossible to read? Like rain on the surface of a pond.
The rest of my life I wondered: Are there dreams that help us to understand the past? Or is any looking back a waste of time, the whole of it a too finely woven net of innumerable conditions, causes, effects, countereffects, impossible to read? Like rain on the surface of a pond.
thebookgeek's review against another edition
5.0
I can't think of many other words that come to mind when I read this besides "moved," "Rivers," and "memory." I don't even think all three of them necessarily make sense in this context. What I mean to say is that Lee's poetry not only brings the past alive in each poem, but in the reader as well. I was particularly enraptured by "Sweet Peace in Time" and "Living with Her." Additionally, some of them walked the line between 'funny' and 'pensive'- like "Virtues of the Boring Husband," not that Lee makes it clear that a poem needs to be either one or the other.
Just, great. Truly inspiring. I definitely plan to read more.
Just, great. Truly inspiring. I definitely plan to read more.
jason461's review against another edition
5.0
He does pretty much everything the way it should be done.
2000s's review against another edition
3.5
Kind of disappointed with this...I felt like this collection was trying too hard to be philosophical but just falling flat. There’s still some poems I liked here (Ex: after the pyre, the apple elopes, immigrant blues, my favorite kingdom), but also like he’s written way better poetry that’s still abstract but also still feels significant. Still love his work though.