Amy Kraft - Week 4: Pick a Poet #1 - Li-Young Lee

         After scrolling through the long list of poets, I had finally found one that interested me: Li-Young Lee. Lee was born in Indonesia to two Chinese political exiles. His father was a personal physician to Mao Zedong, and his grandfather was the first president of the Republic of China. Eventually, an anti-Chinese sentiment started to form in Indonesia, and his father was taken as a prisoner. After his father’s release, Lee and his family fled to Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, and eventually the United States. Growing up Lee’s father often read to him, but he did not begin to write poetry until studying at the University of Pittsburgh under Gerald Stern. In his poem “The Gift,” Lee references his childhood and how his father used to read to him. 

        The poem starts off with a story from Lee’s childhood as he writes, “To pull the metal splinter from my palm. my father recited a story in a low voice. I watched his lovely face and not the blade.”   As a reader, my first thought after reading these lines was that I don’t care. On the other hand, these lines also caught my attention because I wanted to know more about the story. Looking back Lee describes that he does not remember the story his father told him that day, but he remembers how his father’s voice was able to soothe him, illustrating his love for his father. 

        There is a shift in the time period in the poem from the incident in Lee’s childhood, by which he learned discipline which later enabled him to then remove a splinter from his wife’s hand without her feeling any pain. Then again the poem shifts back to his childhood memory of the splinter being removed, and after the splinter is removed he kisses his father on the head as a sign of gratitude.

        The title of this poem is “The Gift” which represents the joy Lee feels, while it also signifies the gift that his father gave him that day. His father gave him the gift of discipline, as well as the gift of a strong father-son bond, a bond that Lee portrays in a way that shows his gratitude. 

        I had originally chosen this poem because I too, can remember the times when my father had to remove a splinter from my hand or foot. The only difference was that when my dad removed the splinter it was quite painful, but I am in no way indicating that my father was rough or didn't care. He did care, he soaked my foot in warm water and then as gently as he could remove the splinter with tweezers. I later learned that the easiest way of removing a splinter was with a needle, but that’s beside the point. When I initially read this poem, I had a sort of connection to it leading me to choose it for my blog.