Li-Young Lee Quotes

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Li-Young Lee Famous Quotes

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In writing poetry, all of one's attention is focused on some inner voice.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: In writing poetry, all of
Hair spills
through my dreams, sprouts
from my stomach, thickens my heart,
and tangles the brain. Hair ties the tongue dumb.
Hair ascends the tree.
of my childhood -- the willow
I climbed
one bare foot and hand at a time,
feeling the knuckles of the gnarled tree, hearing
my father plead from his window, Don't fall!
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Hair spills <br />through my
Sooner of later, God will again
bear out that semblance He makes of me each day.
He'll knead, fold, punch, pull, mark, smudge,
erase, and tear away.

Sometimes it feels like love.
And makes me tremble.
Sometimes it hurts like death.
And makes me shake.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Sooner of later, God will
A poem is like a score for the human voice.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: A poem is like a
I've been thinking about something for a long time, and I keep noticing that most human speech-if not all human speech-is made with the outgoing breath. This is the strange thing about presence and absence. When we breath in, our bodies are filled with nutrients and nourishment. Our blood is filled with oxygen, our skin gets flush; our bones get harder-they get compacted. Our muscles get toned and we feel very present when we're breathing in. The problem is, that when we're breathing in, we can't speak. So presence and silence have something to do with each other.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: I've been thinking about something
People who read poetry have heard about the burning bush, but when you write poetry, you sit inside the burning bush.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: People who read poetry have
Maybe being winged means being wounded by infinity.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Maybe being winged means being
While all bodies share the same fate, all voices do not.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: While all bodies share the
SELF-HELP FOR FELLOW REFUGEES

If your name suggests a country where bells
might have been used for entertainment,

or to announce the entrances and exits of the seasons
and the birthdays of gods and demons,

it's probably best to dress in plain clothes
when you arrive in the United States.
And try not to talk too loud.

If you happen to have watched armed men
beat and drag your father
out the front door of your house
and into the back of an idling truck,

before your mother jerked you from the threshold
and buried your face in her skirt folds,
try not to judge your mother too harshly.

Don't ask her what she thought she was doing,
turning a child's eyes
away from history
and toward that place all human aching starts.

And if you meet someone
in your adopted country
and think you see in the other's face
an open sky, some promise of a new beginning,
it probably means you're standing too far.

Or if you think you read in the other, as in a book
whose first and last pages are missing,
the story of your own birthplace,
a country twice erased,
once by fire, once by forgetfulness,
it probably means you're standing too close.

In any case, try not to let another carry
the burden of your own nostalgia or hope.

And if you're one of those
whose left side of the face does
Li-Young Lee Quotes: SELF-HELP FOR FELLOW REFUGEES<br /><br
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: There are days we live<br>as
I buried my father in my heart.
Now he grows in me, my strange son,
my little root who won't drink milk,
little pale foot sunk in unheard-of night,
little clock spring newly wet
in the fire, little grape, parent to the future
wine, a son the fruit of his own son,
little father I ransom with my life
Li-Young Lee Quotes: I buried my father in
The earth is flat. Those who fall off don't return. The earth is round. All things reveal themselves to men only gradually. I
Li-Young Lee Quotes: The earth is flat. Those
I want the rain to follow me, to mark me with a stripe down my chest and belly, to darken my skin, and blacken my hair. I want to be broken, to be eaten by the anonymous mouths, to be eroded like minutes and seconds, to be reduced to water and a little light. I want to rise, the doors of the rain to open, I will enter, rain alive among my fingers, embroidered on my tongue, and brilliant in my eyes, I want to carry it in my shirt pocket, devote my life to the discovery of its secret, the one blessing it whispers. Rain
Li-Young Lee Quotes: I want the rain to
Then you'll remember your life as a book of candles, each page read by the light of its own burning.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Then you'll remember your life
In the uproar, the confusion
of accents and inflections
how will you hear me when I open my mouth?
Look for me, one of the drab population
under fissured edifices, fractured
artifices. Make my various
names flock overhead,
I will follow you.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: In the uproar, the confusion<br>of
Every time you write a poem it's apocalyptic. You're revealing who you really are to yourself.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Every time you write a
That's what I want, that kind of recklessness where the poem is even ahead of you. It's like riding a horse that's a little too wild for you, so there's this tension between what you can do and what the horse decides it's going to do.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: That's what I want, that
Water has invaded my father's heart, swollen, heavy, twice as large. Bloated liver. Bloated legs. The feet have become balloons. A respirator mask makes him look like a diver. When I lay my face against his - the sound of water returning. The
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Water has invaded my father's
Could it be in longing we are most ourselves?
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Could it be in longing
Our bodies look solid, but they arent. Were like a fountain. A fountain of water looks solid, but you can put your fingers right through it. Our bodies look like things, but theres no thingness to them.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Our bodies look solid, but
Poetry is the language of extremity. Poetry is a transfer of potency. You feel something potent and then you transfer it onto the page.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Poetry is the language of
One Heart"

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, Friend, open

at either end of day.
The work of wings

was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: One Heart
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Memory revises me.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Memory revises me.
Brimming. That's what it is, I want to get to a place where my sentences enact brimming.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Brimming. That's what it is,
Sandalwood"


The ash keeps dropping from the incense stick.

I keep turning you over in my mind.
I keep turning you over in my heart.

The stick shortens, burning.
The ash grows
and falls.

I keep turning you over.
I keep turning you.
I keep turning.

The ash keeps falling, piling up, more
of the silent reduction.

Burning earns such clean wages,
eye of ember, eye of ash hastening.

I keep turning your eyes over
to find your thoughts.
Turning your voice over
to find your meaning.
Turning your body over to find
a place to hide me.

And you keep turning inside me.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Sandalwood

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The sound of rain
outlives us. I listen,
someone is whispering.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: The sound of rain<br />outlives
You think
of a woman, a favorite
dress, your old father's breasts
the last time you saw him, his breath,
brief, the leaf
you've torn from a vine and which you hold now
to your cheek like a train ticket
or a piece of cloth, a little hand or a blade
it all depends
on the course of your memory.
It's a place
for those who own no place
to correspond to ruins in the soul.
It's mine.
It's all yours.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: You think<br>of a woman, a
And of all the rooms in my childhood,
God was the largest
and most empty.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: And of all the rooms
We suffer each other to have each other a while.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: We suffer each other to
But in the city
in which I love you,
no one comes, no one
meets me in the brick clefts;
in the wedged dark,
no finger touches me secretly, no mouth
tastes my flawless salt,
no one wakens the honey in the cells, finds the humming
in the ribs, the rich business in the recesses;
hulls clogged, I continue laden
Li-Young Lee Quotes: But in the city<br>in which
I am that last, that final thing, the body in a white sheet listening,
Li-Young Lee Quotes: I am that last, that
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. Before the story ended, he'd removed the iron sliver I thought I'd die from. I can't remember the tale, but hear his voice still, a well of dark water, a prayer. And I recall his hands, two measures of tenderness he laid against my face.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: To pull the metal splinter
Where is his father?
When will his mother be home?

How is he going to explain
the moon taken hostage, the sea
risen to fill up all the mirrors?

How is he going to explain the branches
beginning to grow from his ribs and throat,
the cries and trills starting in his own mouth?

And now that ancient sorrow between his hips,
his body's ripe listening;
the planet
knowing itself at last.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Where is his father?<br />When
Some things never leave a person:
scent of the hair of one you love,
the texture of persimmons,
in your palm, the ripe weight.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Some things never leave a
Moonlight and high wind.
Dark poplars toss, insinuate the sea.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Moonlight and high wind.<br>Dark poplars
Memory is sweet.
Even when it's painful, memory is sweet.
Li-Young Lee Quotes: Memory is sweet.<br>Even when it's
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