Sung-Ki Lee

Mrs. Boyd, 2B
MYP English 9
February 27, 2014
Styles in Poetry
Our life begins when we are born and ends when we die; however, we may still be
remembered in the world through autobiographies, biographies, and movies. These things can
capture our actions but it cannot express the feelings we had to others. However, a poem can
describe the actions of our lives and express our feelings to the readers. According to Erika Taibl,
Lee's story is personal and he uses the lyric "I" to tell his story and also Chris Semansky says,
Lee loves to write about his family and personal experience and he seems to be very close with
his family knowing their routine.(Taibl, Semansky). As Lee Li-Young writes about his life in
his poems like autobiographers write about their life in books, David Kelly believes It is far too
tempting to read Li-Young Lees poetry in terms of the biographical facts of his life.(Kelly).
Lee Li-Young's irony, symbolism, and dramatic monologue style reveal his personal life.
In Early in the Morning Lee Li-Young talks about his mothers daily routine; however,
the text has multiple meanings other than what he has written. In the poem he describes his
moms hair as black as calligraphers inka calligrapher is a traditional Asian artist,
storyteller, and poetthis tells us that his mom is Asian and prefers the Asian culture. Also Lee
Li-Young wrote, my mother glides an ivory comb, through her hair, heavy, and black as
calligraphers ink. This shows a contrast between light and dark; therefore, it represents how the


mother is easy to identify in the American society because she still behaves like an Asian (Tabil).
Through his poem we discover that the time period in which Lees family were living was
difficult because they were new to the United States.
In order to describe his difficulties of living in the United States, Lee Li-Young wrote the
poem Early in the Morning. Lee Li-Young describes his difficulties in this poem by using
another character as the speaker of the poem, who came to America long ago after a harrowing
struggle against one or more oppressive political systems, a life of hiding from soldiers. (Kelly).
In this poem Lee uses irony by describing something he says he will not describe. In this poem
he uses it multiple times to describe his difficulties by saying that he will not talk about them.
For example, in the poem he says I wontrecall my mother, So I wont show you letters,
or Ill mention none of it. These quotes show that Lee cannot forget about the past and cannot
fly forward into the future (Hill). Chris Semansky agrees by saying, As a poet of ritual and
memory, Lee honors the past but, in doing so, risks postponing the future (Semansky). Through
his technique of writing we know that he misses his old rituals such as his mother always
brushing her hair or his dad always watching over his family (Early in the Morning).
Lee Li-Young does not go into much depth in his writing; therefore, his techniques and
devices were used broadly. This causes the readers to have trouble understanding what Lee is
trying to say. Another reason it is difficult to understand is because in his poems his words have
multiple meanings; therefore, it can be confusing to understand what he actually intended to say.
Therefore, this confusion that Lee causes can mislead people to not understand what the meaning
or milieu is about. However, the majority of the devices and techniques used by Lee Li-Young
does help clarify the meaning and milieu of his poem.


How we use our techniques and devices shape how the readers understand the
information. Although Lee writes like an autobiography, Semansky says that Lee is an author
who does write about his own lived experience, though he shapes it to fit the poem (Semansky).
Because Lee Li-Young fitted his personal life well into the poem, it allowed for great
understanding of the milieu. As a result we are able to understand many challenges that he faced
in America and Indonesia.
Works Cited
"Early in the Morning." Poetry for Students. Ed. David A. Galens. Vol. 17. Detroit: Gale, 2003.
74-84. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
"For a New Citizen of These United States." Poetry for Students. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 15.
Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. 54-66. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
Hill, Pamela Steed. "For a New Citizen of These United States." Poetry for Students. Ed. Anne
Marie Hacht. Vol. 15. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. 54-66. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web.
25 Feb. 2014.
Kelly, David. Critical Essay on For a New Citizen of These United States, in Poetry for
Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Semansky, Chris. "Early in the Morning." Poetry for Students. Ed. David A. Galens. Vol. 17.
Detroit: Gale, 2003. 74-84. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Taibl, Erika. "Early in the Morning." Poetry for Students. Ed. David A. Galens. Vol. 17. Detroit:
Gale, 2003. 74-84. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.















Early In the Morning
While the long grain is softening
in the water, gurgling
over a low stove flame, before
the salted Winter Vegetable is sliced
for breakfast, before the birds,
my mother glides an ivory comb
through her hair, heavy
and black as calligraphers ink

She sits at the foot of the bed.
My father watches, listens for


the music of comb
against hair.

My mother combs,
Pulls her hair back tight, rolls it
Around two fingers, pins it
In a bun to the back of her head
For half a hundred years she had done this.
My father likes to see it like this.
He says it is kempt.

But I know
It is because of the way
My mothers hair falls
When he pulls the pins out.
Easily, like the curtains
When they untie them in the evening.







For A New Citizen Of These United States
Forgive me for thinking I saw
the irregular postage stamp of death;
a black moth the size of my left
thumbnail is all I've trapped in the damask.
There is no need for alarm. And

there is no need for sadness, if
the rain at the window now reminds you
of nothing; not even of that
parlor, long like a nave, where cloud-shadow,
wing-shadow, where father-shadow
continually confused the light. In flight,
leaf-throng and, later, soldiers and


flags deepened those windows to submarine.

But you don't remember, I know,
so I won't mention that house where Chung hid,
Lin wizened, you languished, and Ming-
Ming hush-hushed us with small song. And since you
don't recall the missionary
bells chiming the hour, or those words whose sounds
alone exhaust the heart--garden,
heaven, amen--I'll mention none of it.

After all, it was just our life,
merely years in a book of years. It was
1960, and we stood with
the other families on a crowded
railroad platform. The trains came, then
the rains, and then we got separated.

And in the interval between
familiar faces, events occurred, which
one of us faithfully pencilled
in a day-book bound by a rubber band.

But birds, as you say, fly forward.
So I won't show you letters and the shawl
I've so meaninglessly preserved.
And I won't hum along, if you don't, when
our mothers sing Nights in Shanghai.
I won't, each Spring, each time I smell lilac,
recall my mother, patiently
stitching money inside my coat lining,
if you don't remember your mother
preparing for your own escape.

After all, it was only our
life, our life and its forgetting.