I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing award winning poet, Li-Young Lee, whose latest collection, The Invention of the Darling: Poems, was released May 14, 2024.
Li-Young Lee was born in Indonesia in 1957. His parents were Chinese exiles, each from a prominent family. Lee's great-grandfather was the first president of the Republic of China; Lee's father was personal physician to Mao Zedong. As Indonesia became increasingly anti-Chinese, Lee's father was arrested and jailed for a year as a political prisoner. At his release, the family fled first to Hong Kong, later to Japan, and in 1964, emigrated to the United States. Settling in Pennsylvania, Lee's father entered a seminary and became a small town Presbyterian minister.
As a student at the University of Pittsburgh, Li-Young Lee began writing poetry. His writing is centered in memory and personal experience. The Divine, which he describes as feminine, or a blend of masculine and feminine, is central to Lee's life and work. He is the recipient of awards and honors including the William Carlos Williams Award, the American Book Award, and a fellowship from the Academy of American Poets.
His latest collection, The Invention of the Darling (W.W. Norton & Company, 2024), is his sixth to date.
JBW: How does a poem begin for you?
Li-Young Lee: I wish I knew. There are poems that I just sit down, I line up my body, my mind, my soul, and it just comes. Then there are poems that, I don't expect them. They just come out of the blue, like there's a splinter in the back of my head and I need to get to it, there's a giant idea that grabs me by the back of the neck and for years will wrestle with me. Each time I'm just astounded there's a poem there...I'm at the mercy of God or the muses.
JBW: You once said, 'People who read poetry have heard about the burning bush, but when you write poetry, you sit inside the burning bush' - What's it like for you inside the burning bush?
Li-Young Lee: It is miraculous. I quoted somebody else, I wish I owned that quote. I don't remember who I quoted now. I just think, to be one with God and to burn unconsumed... that's the goal, that's the wonder of wonders.
It's all about wonders, it begins in wonder, it ends in wonder. There's no more wondrous thing than God. For me, poetry begins in wonder.
JBW: Where do you write? Do you have any particular things you surround yourself with, or do as part of your writing process?
Li-Young Lee: Recently it's been sitting in the bathtub. I don't know what it is, it's just so great. Our bathtub looks out at a tree. I actually write all over the house, there are books and papers all over the house, notes and legal pads. I have a little room that's an office, I do a lot of reading in there. I had a ten-page poem come to me when I was sitting on the porch about eight months ago. It was astounding. I didn't expect the poem to come. I really felt as if something was just pushing so hard through me, I was grateful when it was over.
JBW: Do you set a writing schedule? Every day at a certain time or a certain amount of words or poems per day?
Li-Young Lee: I feel as if I'm just constantly at it, like something has my heart or my soul and it grips it. I see or hear things in my head, and I'll think, 'Is that a poem?' The other day I wrote down, 'She is burning, and wings are to blame.' I have no idea where it came from, or where it's gonna take me. I'm gonna have to stare at that. I've written that down like ten times on a sheet of paper, hoping something would follow, but that's it, so I've gotta hunt that down. I wrote, 'Yes, love, this is the heart, mountain after mountain.' I don't know what that means. I don't know where that came from. Maybe I was talking to God. Maybe I was talking to my wife. Sometimes something will happen. Sometimes I work on (the lines) and obscure their beauty.
"I feel as if I'm constantly at it, like something has
my heart or my soul and it grips it. I see or hear
things in my head, and I'll think, 'Is that a poem?"
- Li-Young Lee
JBW: Do you write with a pen or pencil and paper, or do you write on a computer?
Li-Young Lee: I'm very old school. It doesn't make it to the computer until I have a first draft. To be honest, I kind of like this process with all these possibilities. There are all these wondrous gems that I've collected and I like wondering where they go. When a poem begins revealing itself, I become this poem, and there's a feeling of grief and it's thrilling at the same time - it could have been anything, but now it's this thing.
JBW: Writers sometimes go through spans of time during which they manage life events or emotions that have them feeling like they can't draw art out of themselves. Do you experience this? How do you handle these stretches as a poet?
Li-Young Lee: I have gone through those periods, and I respect them. I respect the lull. I experience God in the deepest silence. When I have no more words - that's where poetry begins. Poetry is the last recourse. I respect those periods of not wanting to communicate, of not wanting to reach out. I try to pay close attention to those silences.
JBW: Which of your poems do you consider a breakthrough poem for you as a poet?
Li-Young Lee: I wrote a poem called 'My Indigo,' it's in (my collection) Rose. When I wrote that poem, I felt as if I was getting close to the depth I wanted to write from.
I wrote a poem called, 'I Loved You Before I was Born' - that was a love poem to God. How does one write a love poem to God? I always conceive of God as feminine. All my life I have. Both feminine and masculine. In meditation this morning, I just felt forgiven and loved. God is truly my mother, and I feel so grateful. I was in one of those throes of love when I wrote 'I Loved You Before I was Born,' - that's in (my collection) The Undressing.
"I wrote a poem called 'My Indigo,' it's in Rose. When I wrote that poem, I felt as if I was getting close to the depth I wanted to write from."
-Li-Young Lee
JBW: Your poem 'Persimmons' is my personal favorite. Tell me about writing that poem, how
did it come about?
Li-Young Lee: I'll tell you a little secret: the Chinese character for 'undress' is a picture of to peel a fruit. I was meditating on this concept of undressing and peeling the fruit and what it means, revealing a sweetness or the interior. My last book was called The Undressing. I just feel I'm trying to peel back all the human layers to reveal God. In the poem 'Persimmons,' it peels back and finds some human intimacy and revelations. I'm just not certain it reveals any divine revelations. I don't know if I've peeled the fruit back enough to reveal the seed. That's always been my desire. I just know that God is in here, in me, in you, in the persimmon, in the sun, in the light, in the sky - I know God is just right there. I see poetry as apocalyptic. It's a revelation. Any creator is co-creating with God. I think because God wanted to be revealed, seen, known, every human begins with a primordial desire to be seen...my own problem is sometimes my ego hijacks me. Instead of revealing how embedded I am in God, I focus on writing a good sentence.
JBW: So many artists have faced criticism of their work, even as children in school or from their parents. Has this happened to you? What did you do to squelch any critical voices and rise?
Li-Young Lee: It has happened. I just remember this whole thing is between me and God...I recognize my embeddedness in something older and deeper and truer.
JBW: You've reached celebrity status as a poet. What do you enjoy about that, and what are the downfalls, if any?
Li-Young Lee: I've had real difficulties with that. When I was younger, I never liked being in public. I wonder, Julie, if there is a requisite shyness for one to be a poet at all. I try to be sociable, it's not in my nature. From the beginning, I thought this poetry thing was between me and God.
The highs? I was able to make a living, to support my family. The low would be that somehow I made a name for myself, but never imparted the name of God or the hunger for God in any of the readers or listeners. The lows are my fear that I didn't create more good in the world, whatever that means.
JBW: In poetry writing seminars, courses, or workshops you taught, what were the key points about writing poetry you wanted to get across to your students?
Li-Young Lee: The last workshop I taught, I said, 'Imagine God has sent the Destroying Angel to earth. God has said, 'I searched the world over and you people have really fucked things up.' The Destroying Angel comes down and feels pity, and says, before I lay my sword down, if just one could say something (valuable), I will staid my hand.' If you are a poet worth your salt, you will write a poem to staid his hand to save the world. I could never write anything to redeem us to God, to say, 'We're precious. Please don't destroy us.' But we have to dare that. God wants us to dare that. God says, 'Are you kidding? You are capable of writing things - you don't even know!
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