Li-Young LeeChristine Graziano, Rachel Jimenez, Julia Purdy

Eating TogetherIn the steamer is the trout seasoned with slivers of ginger,two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil. We shall eat it with rice for lunch, brothers, sister, my mother who will taste the sweetest meat of the head,holding it between her fingers deftly, the way my father did weeks ago. Then he lay down to sleep like a snow-covered road winding through pines older than him, without any travelers, and lonely for no one.

Li-Young Lee

• Influences- Li Bo and Tu Fu

• Award winner• Every poem a

“descendant of God”• Family• Four books

Biography• Born August 19, 1957 • 1964- United States• High School in

Pennsylvania • 1979- Undergraduate

at University of Pittsburgh

• First book- Rose

Biography cont’d.

• 1978- Married Donna Lee• 1979-1980- University of Arizona• 1980-1981- State University of New York• Taught – Northwestern University and University of Iowa

• 1989- Father died• 1998- degree of Doctor of Humane Letters

Eating AloneI've pulled the last of the year's young onions. The garden is bare now. The ground is cold, brown and old. What is left of the day flames in the maples at the corner of my eye. I turn, a cardinal vanishes. By the cellar door, I wash the onions,then drink from the icy metal spigot. Once, years back, I walked beside my father among the windfall pears. I can't recall our words. We may have strolled in silence. But I still see him bend that way-left hand braced on knee, creaky-to lift and hold to my eye a rotten pear. In it, a hornet spun crazily, glazed in slow, glistening juice.

It was my father I saw this morning waving to me from the trees. I almost called to him, until I came close enough to see the shovel, leaning where I had left it, in the flickering, deep green shade.

White rice steaming, almost done. Sweet green peas fried in onions. Shrimp braised in sesame oil and garlic. And my own loneliness. What more could I, a young man, want.

Literary Commonalities• Nature • Family• Memories• Relations

Common Literary Devices

• Repetition• Rhetorical questions• Similes• Symbolism

Criticism- Agree• “wonderful, haunting poems” • “a state of being beyond words”• “It’s how good they are that is hard to

define”

Criticism- Disagree• “audacious and passionate poet-traveler • “takes great chances” • “the deep seriousness” • “almost heroic ideal”

Where now?

• Chicago, Illinois with family

My Favorite KingdomMy favorite day is Sunday.

My favorite color ismy father's apple tree in the rain.

My favorite coloris my father's pear treesin a cloud of bees.

My favorite day is Tuesday.

My favorite windowlooks onto two oceans:

one a housein various stages of ruin and beginning,

and one a book,whose every word is outcome,whose every page is lifelong sentence.

My favorite song is Time.

My favorite dreamis the one in which I stopwith my mother under brancheson the long way home from school.

List of Works Cited• “Eating Alone.” PoemHunter.com. N.p., 13 Jan. 2003. Web. 22 Feb. 2012.• Elainekamari.wordpress.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2012.• Hdwallpaper.me. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2012.• Images.mooseycountrygarden.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2012.• Lee, Li-Young, and Li-Young Lee. Behind My Eyes. N.p.: W.W. Norton &

Company Inc. , 2008. Print.• “Li-Young Lee.” The American Poetry Review. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2012.• “Li-Young Lee.” American Writers. 15th ed. 2006. Print.• “Li-Young Lee.” Critical Survey of Poetry. 4th ed. 2011. Print.• “Li-Young Lee.” Poetry Foundation. N.p., 2010. Web. 22 Feb. 2012.• “Li-Young Lee.” Poets.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2012.• Londonnfp.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2012.• Naturalparentsnetwork.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2012.