I ASK MY MOTHER TO SING- LI YOUNG LEE

Li Young Lee

Lee has said: "Writing poetry is absolutely religious for me. I happen to believe that everything we do or say finally is a dialogue with the Universe, or God."

About Author

• Li-Young Lee is an American poet. He was born on August 19,1957 in Jakarta, Indonesia, to Chinese parents. His maternal great-grandfather was Yuan Shikai, China's first Republican President, who attempted to make himself emperor.

I Ask My Mother to Sing

Li-Young LeeShe begins, and my grandmother joins her. Mother and daughter sing like young girls.

If my father were alive, he would playhis accordion and sway like a boat.

I’ve never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,

nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watchthe rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the

picnickersrunning away on the grass.

But I love to hear it sung;how the water lilies fill with rain until

they overturn, spilling water into water,then rock back, and fill with more.

Both women have begin to cry.But neither stops her song.

Water Lily (detail)John La Farge

Kind of poem

• I Ask My Mother to Sing is a Sonnet with three quatrians (stanza of four lines)

• It is a Lyric poem which describes the emotions of the characters.

• In sonnets, the last two lines rhymes with each other

Summary

• The first stanza is about what happens when the speaker ask his mother to sing. This is a stanza about homesickness and all those people appearing here had the chance to be and born there in China. It shows two generations before speaker’s, generations that know China as I said before.

Accordian

• The second stanza is regarding places that enable readers to become aware that the speaker is talking about China, since all those places are China’s icons but places the mask (persona) has never been in those places but he loves to hear about them

Peking (Beijing)

Summer Palace

Stone Boat

Kuen Ming Lake

• The third stanza says in its first line “But I love to hear it sung”, it means that despite speaker has never been in the land of the Great Wall; he likes to hear it through songs. He feels so special because the speaker is not yearning something of his past, nor places he has been in before, it’s just a feeling about something he carries in his blood, Chinese backgrounds. In addition to that, this stanza is special because it plays with readers, it makes us hear and move with the waterlilies.

• The last stanza is the shortest and the saddest. These two lines make us think that both mother and grandmother resemble water lilies. If we take the last two lines of the third stanza and compare them with the other two that made up the fourth stanza we will find out the next: “they overturn, spilling water into water” is like say “both women have begun to cry” dropping tears into tears.

Theme

Never forget where you're fromStay connected to your roots and feel proud on them. Love and respect your loved ones.

Literary Devices

• Metaphor• Simile• Rhyme Scheme Free• Imagery