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A review by katvi
Behind My Eyes: Poems [With CD] by Li-Young Lee
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.