Li-Young Lee (李立揚,

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: Lǐ Lìyáng) (born August 19, 1957) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

. He was born in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, to

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

parents. His maternal great-grandfather was

Yuan Shikai Yuan Shikai (; 16 September 1859 – 6 June 1916) was a Chinese military and government official who rose to power during the late Qing dynasty and eventually ended the Qing dynasty rule of China in 1912, later becoming the Emperor of China. H ...

, China's first Republican President,Poetry Archive
/ref> who attempted to make himself emperor. Lee's father, who was a personal physician to

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

while in China, relocated his family to Indonesia, where he helped found Gamaliel University. In 1959 the Lee family fled Indonesia to escape widespread anti-Chinese sentiment and after a five-year trek through

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, they settled in the United States in 1964. Li-Young Lee attended the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

, the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

, and the

State University of New York at Brockport State University of New York Brockport (also known as SUNY Brockport or Brockport State, and previously The College at Brockport) is a public university in Brockport, New York. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY). History ...

Development as a poet

Lee attended the

, where he began to develop his love for writing. He had seen his father find his passion for ministry and as a result of his father reading to him and encouraging Lee to find his passion, Lee began to dive into the art of language. Lee's writing has also been influenced by classic Chinese poets, such as

Li Bai Li Bai (, 701–762), also pronounced as Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai (), was a Chinese poet, acclaimed from his own time to the present as a brilliant and romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights. He and his friend Du F ...

and

Du Fu Du Fu (; 712–770) was a Tang dynasty poet and politician. Along with his elder contemporary and friend Li Bai (Li Po), he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets.Ebrey, 103. His greatest ambition was to serve his country as ...

. Many of Lee's poems are filled with themes of simplicity, strength, and silence. All are strongly influenced by his family history, childhood, and individuality. He writes with simplicity and passion which creates images that take the reader deeper and also requires his audience to fill in the gaps with their own imagination. These feelings of exile and boldness to rebel take shape as they provide common themes for poems.

Lee's influence on Asian American poetry

Li-Young Lee has been an established Asian American poet who has been doing interviews for the past twenty years. ''Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee'' (BOA Editions, 2006, ed. Earl G. Ingersoll), is the first edited and published collection of interviews with an Asian American poet. In this book, Earl G. Ingersoll has collected interviews with the poet consisting of "conversational" questions meant to bring out Lee's views on Asian American poetry, writing, and identity.

Awards and honors

Lee has won numerous poetry awards:Blue Flower Arts
/ref> * 1986: Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, for ''Rose'' * 1988:

Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Mrs. (American English) or Mrs (British English; standard E ...

* 1990:

Lamont Poetry Selection The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreach ...

for ''The City in Which I Love You'' * 1995:

Lannan Literary Award The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...

* 1995:

American Book Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...

, from the

Before Columbus Foundation The Before Columbus Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, "dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature". The Foundation makes annual awards for books published in ...

, for ''The Wingéd Seed: A Remembrance'' * 2002:

William Carlos Williams Award The William Carlos Williams Award is given out by the Poetry Society of America for a poetry book published by a small press, non-profit, or university press. The award is endowed by the family and friends of Geraldine Clinton Little, a poet and ...

for ''Book of My Nights'' (American Poets Continuum) Judge: Carolyn Kizer * 2003:

Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...

, which does not accept applications and which includes a $25,000 stipend * Fellowship,

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

* Fellowship,

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...

* Grant,

Illinois Arts Council The Illinois Arts Council is a government agency of the state of Illinois formed to encourage development of the arts throughout Illinois. Founded in 1965 by the Illinois General Assembly, the Illinois Arts Council provides financial and technica ...

* Grant,

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryl ...

* Grant,

Pennsylvania Council on the Arts The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA) is an agency serving the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Its mission is to strengthen the cultural, educational, and economic vitality of Pennsylvania's communities through the arts. This mission is paired wit ...

Other recognition

* 2011: Lee's poem ″A Story″ was featured in the

AP English Literature and Composition Advanced Placement (AP) English Literature and Composition (also known as Senior AP English, AP Lit, APENG, or AP English IV) is a course and examination offered by the College Board as part of the Advanced Placement Program in the United State ...

2011 Free-Response Questions.http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap11_frq_english_lit.pdf

Selected bibliography

Poetry

* 1986: ''Rose.'' Rochester: BOA Editions Limited, * 1990: ''The City In Which I Love You.'' Rochester: BOA Editions Limited, * 2001: ''Book of My Nights.'' Rochester: BOA Editions Limited, * 2008: ''Behind My Eyes.'' New York: W.W. Norton & Co., * 2018: ''The Undressing.'' New York: W.W. Norton & Co.,

Memoir

*''The Wingéd Seed: A Remembrance.'' (hardcover) New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. ASIN: B000NGRB2G (paperback) St. Paul: Ruminator, 1999.

Critical studies

as of March 2008: #Meaning Maker By: Butts, Lisa; ''Publishers Weekly'', 2007 Nov 19; 254 (56): 38. #Li-Young Lee no hyoka o tooshite By: Kajiwara, Teruko; ''Eigo Seinen/Rising Generation'', 2006 July; 152 (4): 212-13. #Transcendentalism, Ethnicity, and Food in the Work of Li-Young Lee By: Xu, Wenying; ''Boundary 2: An International Journal of Literature and Culture,'' 2006 Summer; 33 (2): 129-57. #An Exile's Will to Canon and Its Tension with Ethnicity: Li-Young Lee By: Xu, Wenying. IN: Bona and Maini, ''Multiethnic Literature and Canon Debates.'' Albany, NY: State U of New York P; 2006. pp. 145–64 #Li-Young Lee By: Davis, Rocío G.. IN: Madsen, ''Asian American Writers.'' Detroit, MI: Gale; 2005. pp. 202–06 #'Let the Word Speak through: Jordan C. Wise in Conversation with Li-Young Lee', ''New Walk'', Autumn/Winter 2013; 7: 20-23. #'Your Otherness Is Perfect as My Death': The Ethics and Aesthetics of Li-Young Lee's Poetry By: Zhou, Xiaojing. IN: Fahraeus and Jonsson, ''Textual Ethos Studies or Locating Ethics.'' New York, NY: Rodopi; 2005. pp. 297–314 #Sexual Desire and Cultural Memory in Three Ethnic Poets By: Basford, Douglas; ''

MELUS Melus (also ''Milus'' or ''Meles'', ''Melo'' in Italian) (died 1020) was a Lombard nobleman from the Apulian town of Bari, whose ambition to carve for himself an autonomous territory from the Byzantine catapanate of Italy in the early eleventh ...

: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States,'' 2004 Fall-Winter; 29 (3-4): 243-56. #The Politics of Ethnic Authorship: Li-Young Lee, Emerson, and Whitman at the Banquet Table By: Partridge, Jeffrey F. L.; ''Studies in the Literary Imagination,'' 2004 Spring; 37 (1): 101-26. #Interview with Li-Young Lee By: Bilyak, Dianne; ''Massachusetts Review: A Quarterly of Literature, the Arts and Public Affairs,'' 2003-2004 Winter; 44 (4): 600-12. #Poetries of Transformation: Joy Harjo and Li-Young Lee By: Kolosov, Jacqueline; ''

Studies in American Indian Literatures ''Studies in American Indian Literatures'' is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering Native American literature. It is published by the University of Nebraska Press on behalf of the Association for the Study of American Indian Literat ...

'' 2003 Summer; 15 (2): 39-57. #''"Father-Stem and Mother-Root": Genealogy, Memory, and the Poetics of Origins in Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, and Li-Young Lee'' By: Malandra, Marc Joseph; Dissertation, Cornell U, 2002. #Forming Personal and Cultural Identities in the Face of Exodus: A Discussion of Li-Young Lee's Poetry By: Jenkins, Tricia; S''outh Asian Review,'' 2003; 24 (2): 199-210. #Lee's 'Eating Alone' By: Moeser, Daniel; ''Explicator'', 2002 Winter; 60 (2): 117-19. #The Way a Calendar Dissolves: A Refugee's Sense of Time in the Work of Li-Young Lee By: Lorenz, Johnny. IN: Davis and Ludwig, ''Asian American Literature in the International Context: Readings on Fiction, Poetry, and Performance.'' Hamburg, Germany: Lit; 2002. pp. 157–69 #''Night of No Exile'' By: Jones, Marie C.; Dissertation, U of North Texas, 1999. #Art, Spirituality, and the Ethic of Care: Alternative Masculinities in Chinese American Literature By: Cheung, King-Kok. IN: Gardiner, ''Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory: New Directions.'' New York, NY: Columbia UP; 2002. pp. 261–89 #The Precision of Persimmons: Hybridity, Grafting and the Case of Li-Young Lee By: Yao, Steven G.; ''Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory,'' 2001 Apr; 12 (1): 1-23. #To Witness the Invisible: A Talk with Li-Young Lee By: Marshall, Tod; ''Kenyon Review,'' 2000 Winter; 22 (1): 129-47. #Beyond Lot's Wife: The Immigration Poems of Marilyn Chin, Garrett Hongo, Li-Young Lee, and David Mura By: Slowik, Mary; ''

'', 2000 Fall-Winter; 25 (3-4): 221-42. #Form and Identity in Language Poetry and Asian American Poetry By: Yu, Timothy; ''Contemporary Literature,'' 2000 Spring; 41 (3): 422-61. #An Interview with Li-Young Lee By: Fluharty, Matthew; M''issouri Review,'' 2000; 23 (1): 81-99. #Li-Young Lee By: Lee, James Kyung-Jin. IN: Cheung, ''Words Matter: Conversations with Asian American Writers.'' Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, with UCLA Asian American Studies Center; 2000. pp. 270–80 #''Necessary Figures: Metaphor, Irony and Parody in the Poetry of Li-Young Lee, Marilyn Chin, and John Yau'' By: Wang, Dorothy Joan; Dissertation,U of California, Berkeley, 1998. #A Conversation with Li-Young Lee ; ''Indiana Review,'' 1999 Fall-Winter; 21 (2): 101-08. #The Cultural Predicaments of Ethnic Writers: Three Chicago Poets By: Bresnahan, Roger J. Jiang; ''Midwestern Miscellany,'' 1999 Fall; 27: 36-46. #''The City in Which I Love You:'' Li-Young Lee's Excellent Song By: Hesford, Walter A.; ''Christianity and Literature,'' 1996 Autumn; 46 (1): 37-60. #Lee's 'Persimmons' By: Engles, Tim; ''Explicator'', 1996 Spring; 54 (3): 191-92. #Inheritance and Invention in Li-Young Lee's Poetry By: Zhou, Xiaojing; ''

'', 1996 Spring; 21 (1): 113-32. #Li-Young Lee By: Hsu, Ruth Y. IN: Conte, ''American Poets since World War II: Fourth Series.'' Detroit: Thomson Gale; 1996. pp. 139–46 #Li-Young Lee By: Lee, James; ''BOMB'', 1995 Spring; 51: 10-13.

External links

Poems by Li-Young Lee and biography at PoetryFoundation.orgProfile at The Whiting Foundation

Scene Missing Magazine Interviews Li-Young Lee

Audio of Lannan Foundation Reading with Li-Young Lee and conversation between Li-Young Lee and Michael Silverblatt

State of Illinois Site featuring Li-Young Lee

Li-Young Lee's Reading at BYU entitled "Infinite Inwardness"

* Audio
Li-Young Lee reads "To Hold"
from the book ''Behind My Eyes'' (vi
poemsoutloud.net

Audio:
"Immigrant Blues" from ''Behind My Eyes'', read by Li-Young Lee

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Li-Young 1957 births Living people People from Jakarta Indonesian emigrants to the United States Indonesian people of Chinese descent University of Pittsburgh alumni University of Arizona alumni State University of New York at Brockport alumni American male poets American poets American writers of Chinese descent PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award winners American Book Award winners

Development as a poet

Lee's influence on Asian American poetry

Awards and honors

Other recognition

Selected bibliography

Poetry

Memoir

See also

Critical studies

External links

References