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In this outstanding first book of poems, Lee is unafraid to show emotion, especially when writing about his father or his wife. "But there is wisdom/ in the hour in which a boy/ sits in his room listening," says the first poem, and Lee's silent willingness to step outside himself imbues Rose with a rare sensitivity. The images Lee finds, such as the rose and the apple, are repeated throughout the book, crossing over from his father's China to his own America. Every word becomes transformative, as even his father's blindness and death can become beautiful. There is a strong enough technique here to make these poems of interest to an academic audience and enough originality to stun readers who demand alternative style and subject matter.
— Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," New York
— Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," New York
71 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1986
69 people are currently reading
4882 people want to read
About the author
Li-Young Lee
33 books409 followersLi-Young Lee is an American poet. He was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, to Chinese parents. His great-grandfather was Yuan Shikai, China's first Republican President, who attempted to make himself emperor. Lee's father, who was a personal physician to Mao Zedong while in China, relocated his family to Indonesia, where he helped found Gamaliel University. His father was exiled and spent a year in an Indonesian prison camp. In 1959 the Lee family fled the country to escape anti-Chinese sentiment and after a five-year trek through Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan, they settled in the United States in 1964. Li-Young Lee attended the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Arizona, and the State University of New York at Brockport.
Lee attended the University of Pittsburgh, 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, Li Bo and Tu Fu. 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 many of his poems.
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 collection, Earl G. Ingersoll asks "conversational" questions to bring out Lee’s views on Asian American poetry, writing, and identity.
Lee attended the University of Pittsburgh, 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, Li Bo and Tu Fu. 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 many of his poems.
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 collection, Earl G. Ingersoll asks "conversational" questions to bring out Lee’s views on Asian American poetry, writing, and identity.
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June 2, 2025
‘I long to taste the world with a kiss.’
While poetry often dives into the heart to confront the heavy burdens of sadness and grief, poet Li-Young Lee asks us to consider how it is ‘no easy thing to bear, the weight of sweetness.’ The Indonesian born poet’s debut collection—the now practically cult-classic Rose—is filled with soft, lyrical depths of memory, family, identity as well as poetically traversing ‘Song, wisdom, sadness, joy,’ yet, sweetness, he states in the aptly named The Weight of Sweetness , ‘equals three of any of these gravities.’ This is an emotional journey of a collection, one that bears all its tenderness and vulnerability through perfectly constructed, contemplated verses that arrive with a sense of quietude and calm. Rose has a sublime, meditative quality and to hold the volume in your hand is not unlike holding the titular flower, feeling a sense of fragility yet enamoured in all its ecstacies of the ephemeral beauties of life. An immaculate debut with poems such as From Blossoms or Persimmons that have become modern poetic staples, Li-Young Lee softly reaches into our hearts and, like one squeezing a lemon for it’s juices, extracts the sweetness of the soul to display iit in all it’s shining intricacies like a cosmos of self writ large across the glory of page and sky.
From Blossoms
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
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.
First, a big shoutout to Noa ౨ৎ‧₊˚ and her lovely review for encouraging me to finally read this in full. Li-Young Lee was the sort of poet I’d often refer to as a favorite despite never having read an entire collection until now. The samples of his poetry I’d encountered—such as the above poem or his later work like I Loved You Before I Was Born —had such an immaculate resonance I couldn’t deny his greatness as a whole. Rose, his debut from 1985 and winner of the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award, practically reads like a ‘best of’ collection from a seasoned poet as each page is just bursting with poetic gems. Read this with a pen at hand, you’ll want to underline or star half this book. For instance:
I know moments measured
by a kiss, or a tear, a pass of the hand along a loved one’s face.
I know lips that love me,
that return my kisses.
Or there are his moments of exquisite imagery and metaphorical language that gives ‘a feeling of the vastness of the world’, where ‘monotonous sobs resembled laughter’ or, as in the description of his father in Eating Together :
he lay down
to sleep like a snow-covered road
winding through pines older than him,
without any travelers, and lonely for no one.
Perhaps the best use of dynamic imagery comes from the lengthier poem, Always a Rose, a centerpiece of the collection where ‘in the procession of summers and the arrivals of days the roses marched by in a blur.’ Lee asks ‘what shape floats / in the dark window, what / ragged form?’ arriving as a rather Shakespearean query where one must wonder how a rose by any other name might be absorbed and then proceeds to craft a cavalcade of meanings and complex metaphors around the symbolism of the rose. It is ‘mistook for blood,’ or ‘I swore was my soul (it choked),’ and he assails us with rose imagery as ‘Mouth, scream, edges / barbed, it balances / on a long, spiked, crooked / stem,’ that holds in tension the notions of redemption and life with death and danger. It is a delicately balanced effect that is continuously delivered in incredible moments of prose across its many parts. Such as:
Small, auroral, your death is large.
You live, you die with me, in spite
of me, like my sleeping wife.
Lying here, with her at my right and you at my left,
the dying lies between the dying.
Which is one of Lee’s greatest gifts: he challenges us yet always remains in an encouraging and calm contemplative state that allows the beauty to emanate from every word and page. It’s simply a joy to read and is a rather cathartic experience.
Before it all gets wiped away, let me say,
there is wisdom in the slender hour
which arrives between two shadows.
It is not heavenly and it is not sweet.
It is accompanied by steady human weeping,
and twin furrows between the brows,
but it is what I know,
and so am able to tell.
—from Epistle
Family and boyhood are a frequent stage for musings in Roses and Lee considers ‘am I stricken by memory or forgetfulness?’ as the speaker ponders in Ash, Snow, or Moonlight. What is forgotten falls away while the tenderness remains etched across time, such as in the rather moving poem The Gift which features the figure of the Father that tenderly haunts much of this collection. It’s so good I want to put it here in full:
The Gift
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,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.
Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.
Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.
The Father is another dynamic symbol within the collection, rotating between a figure of love and loss and being an anchor for memory. As Lee writes in My Indigo , ‘you burn. You live / a while in two worlds / at once’ and in this way much of his imagery and holds multiple symbolisms at once and all elements of the collection are held in tension with one another to uphold a sense of balance that would collapse under less hands. It’s impressive and inspiring and to read Li-Young Lee is to take in the mingling of words on the page the way one word a work of artwork hanging on a wall and the comingling of colors and brush strokes.
Love, how the hours accumulate. Uncountable.
The trees grow tall, some people walk away
and diminish forever.
—from Braiding
Li-Young Lee’s Rose is a phenomenal debut collection and an unforgettable poetic experience. Sifting through the sands of time, he explores memory, family, identity, and the sweetness of life in turns both poetically grand and contemplatively quiet. It's just hit after hit page after page and I can’t recommend it more. An absolute banger.
5/5
Between two griefs, a tree.
Between my hands, white chrysanthemums, yellow
chrysanthemums.
The old book I finished reading
I've since read again and again.
And what was far grows near,
and what is near grows more dear,
and all of my visions and interpretations
depend on what I see,
and between my eyes is always
the rain, the migrant rain.
—from Visions and Interpretations
While poetry often dives into the heart to confront the heavy burdens of sadness and grief, poet Li-Young Lee asks us to consider how it is ‘no easy thing to bear, the weight of sweetness.’ The Indonesian born poet’s debut collection—the now practically cult-classic Rose—is filled with soft, lyrical depths of memory, family, identity as well as poetically traversing ‘Song, wisdom, sadness, joy,’ yet, sweetness, he states in the aptly named The Weight of Sweetness , ‘equals three of any of these gravities.’ This is an emotional journey of a collection, one that bears all its tenderness and vulnerability through perfectly constructed, contemplated verses that arrive with a sense of quietude and calm. Rose has a sublime, meditative quality and to hold the volume in your hand is not unlike holding the titular flower, feeling a sense of fragility yet enamoured in all its ecstacies of the ephemeral beauties of life. An immaculate debut with poems such as From Blossoms or Persimmons that have become modern poetic staples, Li-Young Lee softly reaches into our hearts and, like one squeezing a lemon for it’s juices, extracts the sweetness of the soul to display iit in all it’s shining intricacies like a cosmos of self writ large across the glory of page and sky.
From Blossoms
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
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.
First, a big shoutout to Noa ౨ৎ‧₊˚ and her lovely review for encouraging me to finally read this in full. Li-Young Lee was the sort of poet I’d often refer to as a favorite despite never having read an entire collection until now. The samples of his poetry I’d encountered—such as the above poem or his later work like I Loved You Before I Was Born —had such an immaculate resonance I couldn’t deny his greatness as a whole. Rose, his debut from 1985 and winner of the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award, practically reads like a ‘best of’ collection from a seasoned poet as each page is just bursting with poetic gems. Read this with a pen at hand, you’ll want to underline or star half this book. For instance:
I know moments measured
by a kiss, or a tear, a pass of the hand along a loved one’s face.
I know lips that love me,
that return my kisses.
Or there are his moments of exquisite imagery and metaphorical language that gives ‘a feeling of the vastness of the world’, where ‘monotonous sobs resembled laughter’ or, as in the description of his father in Eating Together :
he lay down
to sleep like a snow-covered road
winding through pines older than him,
without any travelers, and lonely for no one.
Perhaps the best use of dynamic imagery comes from the lengthier poem, Always a Rose, a centerpiece of the collection where ‘in the procession of summers and the arrivals of days the roses marched by in a blur.’ Lee asks ‘what shape floats / in the dark window, what / ragged form?’ arriving as a rather Shakespearean query where one must wonder how a rose by any other name might be absorbed and then proceeds to craft a cavalcade of meanings and complex metaphors around the symbolism of the rose. It is ‘mistook for blood,’ or ‘I swore was my soul (it choked),’ and he assails us with rose imagery as ‘Mouth, scream, edges / barbed, it balances / on a long, spiked, crooked / stem,’ that holds in tension the notions of redemption and life with death and danger. It is a delicately balanced effect that is continuously delivered in incredible moments of prose across its many parts. Such as:
Small, auroral, your death is large.
You live, you die with me, in spite
of me, like my sleeping wife.
Lying here, with her at my right and you at my left,
the dying lies between the dying.
Which is one of Lee’s greatest gifts: he challenges us yet always remains in an encouraging and calm contemplative state that allows the beauty to emanate from every word and page. It’s simply a joy to read and is a rather cathartic experience.
Before it all gets wiped away, let me say,
there is wisdom in the slender hour
which arrives between two shadows.
It is not heavenly and it is not sweet.
It is accompanied by steady human weeping,
and twin furrows between the brows,
but it is what I know,
and so am able to tell.
—from Epistle
Family and boyhood are a frequent stage for musings in Roses and Lee considers ‘am I stricken by memory or forgetfulness?’ as the speaker ponders in Ash, Snow, or Moonlight. What is forgotten falls away while the tenderness remains etched across time, such as in the rather moving poem The Gift which features the figure of the Father that tenderly haunts much of this collection. It’s so good I want to put it here in full:
The Gift
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,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.
Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.
Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.
The Father is another dynamic symbol within the collection, rotating between a figure of love and loss and being an anchor for memory. As Lee writes in My Indigo , ‘you burn. You live / a while in two worlds / at once’ and in this way much of his imagery and holds multiple symbolisms at once and all elements of the collection are held in tension with one another to uphold a sense of balance that would collapse under less hands. It’s impressive and inspiring and to read Li-Young Lee is to take in the mingling of words on the page the way one word a work of artwork hanging on a wall and the comingling of colors and brush strokes.
Love, how the hours accumulate. Uncountable.
The trees grow tall, some people walk away
and diminish forever.
—from Braiding
Li-Young Lee’s Rose is a phenomenal debut collection and an unforgettable poetic experience. Sifting through the sands of time, he explores memory, family, identity, and the sweetness of life in turns both poetically grand and contemplatively quiet. It's just hit after hit page after page and I can’t recommend it more. An absolute banger.
5/5
Between two griefs, a tree.
Between my hands, white chrysanthemums, yellow
chrysanthemums.
The old book I finished reading
I've since read again and again.
And what was far grows near,
and what is near grows more dear,
and all of my visions and interpretations
depend on what I see,
and between my eyes is always
the rain, the migrant rain.
—from Visions and Interpretations
July 1, 2021
a new favorite
September 22, 2024
When it comes to poetry, some like it simple. Some of us like to read nature poetry, too, even though it is somewhat out of style in these politically-inspired times that have little patience for such ordinary rhythms of life.
Li-Young Lee overlaps nature with family. Sadness. Love. How opposites keep and comfort each other. His is a plain style, so if solving the mystery is your thing when reading poetry, you can take a pass on this collection.
For a representative piece from the book, you can jump to my website where I share the poem "Early in the Morning."
Li-Young Lee overlaps nature with family. Sadness. Love. How opposites keep and comfort each other. His is a plain style, so if solving the mystery is your thing when reading poetry, you can take a pass on this collection.
For a representative piece from the book, you can jump to my website where I share the poem "Early in the Morning."
November 13, 2018
I have never read a more beautiful description of the bond between a father and son - truly beautiful and full of tender memories.
June 4, 2019
I don't know why I love this poem so much - but I do - over and over again.
From Blossoms
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
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.
From Blossoms
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
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.
May 5, 2013
I'm not sure anyone does it better. Poetry as it ought to be. Heartbreaking, beautiful, lyric, narrative, accessible, emotive, evocative, experiential--excellent poetry. That's all.
September 22, 2020
This isn’t just a book of poetry. It is a book of loss, grief, and the reality of our own mortality. It is an eloquent journal of the perplex emotions that losing someone you love brings. It is an observant look at the space around the poet’s life and a portrait of mundane beauty.
I thoroughly enjoyed Li-Young Lee’s poems in this quick read. There was a lot to ruminate upon and some truly breathtaking verses.
I know many who say, “I do not like poetry,” but I encourage you, especially if you do enjoy reading, to sample various poets. I believe poetry holds a variety of genres all on its own. Perhaps you read a few that just weren’t for you. Perhaps you will find some that are. If you are willing to give poetry another try, start here. ❤️
I thoroughly enjoyed Li-Young Lee’s poems in this quick read. There was a lot to ruminate upon and some truly breathtaking verses.
I know many who say, “I do not like poetry,” but I encourage you, especially if you do enjoy reading, to sample various poets. I believe poetry holds a variety of genres all on its own. Perhaps you read a few that just weren’t for you. Perhaps you will find some that are. If you are willing to give poetry another try, start here. ❤️
July 6, 2017
This was almost 4 stars, but there were six poems that I absolutely fell in love with. Definitely one of my new favorite poets.
January 25, 2018
Lee’s poems are extraordinary in the way that they blend the modern English and classical Chinese poetic styles, with a bit of whimsy in between, filled with memories and sprinkled with illusions.
Favorites:
Persimmons: intersects several childhood persimmon anecdotes, a moving portrayal of how family and culture shape us.
Falling: The Code: evokes so much sadness through describing the sound of apple falling.
The Life: meditates on father-son and son-father relationships with inventive imagery.
Visions and Interpretations: explores again father-son and son-father relationships through three versions of the same story, forming a layered understanding of an affection that transcends time.
Major Themes:
Father & Son (he loves and misses his father so, so, so much—his father appears in EVERY one of his poems)
Childhood & Memory
Family & Love
Identity & Exile
Grief & Mortality
Favorites:
Persimmons: intersects several childhood persimmon anecdotes, a moving portrayal of how family and culture shape us.
Falling: The Code: evokes so much sadness through describing the sound of apple falling.
The Life: meditates on father-son and son-father relationships with inventive imagery.
Visions and Interpretations: explores again father-son and son-father relationships through three versions of the same story, forming a layered understanding of an affection that transcends time.
Major Themes:
Father & Son (he loves and misses his father so, so, so much—his father appears in EVERY one of his poems)
Childhood & Memory
Family & Love
Identity & Exile
Grief & Mortality
January 1, 2008
i have read and reread the poems in this book so many times.
i first encountered lee at the geraldine dodge poetry festical back in 94. i randomly decided to attend his seminar and his readings really made an impression on me.
here are a few things i remember about what he said about his process of writing. (i am heavily paraphrasing due to my terrible memory.)
"Language often fails to represent what you're trying to say. Instead, it outlines the boundary of the void, the thought, which you're trying to give shape to."
"In English, we often use the phrase 'to look into the future.' Now in Chinese, the similar phrase is closer in meaning to 'falling into the future,' which I think is more accurate. All we can see is the past. That's where we look most of the time. We also have less control over the future as if we are falling into it..."
some poems of note:
The Gift
Persimmons
Mnemonic
Eating Alone
i first encountered lee at the geraldine dodge poetry festical back in 94. i randomly decided to attend his seminar and his readings really made an impression on me.
here are a few things i remember about what he said about his process of writing. (i am heavily paraphrasing due to my terrible memory.)
"Language often fails to represent what you're trying to say. Instead, it outlines the boundary of the void, the thought, which you're trying to give shape to."
"In English, we often use the phrase 'to look into the future.' Now in Chinese, the similar phrase is closer in meaning to 'falling into the future,' which I think is more accurate. All we can see is the past. That's where we look most of the time. We also have less control over the future as if we are falling into it..."
some poems of note:
The Gift
Persimmons
Mnemonic
Eating Alone
January 1, 2009
After re-reading this book recently, I've decided to bump my rating from a 3.75 to a solid 4.0. I like Lee's plain use of language. I even like the sentimentality. Sometimes tacky works. Also cool is the subtle infusion of Asian culture without relying on it for substance. Lately strained "cultural" literature, knee-deep with political agendas and awash with "serious" social taboos, unrest and the muck has given me gas. Sometimes simple whole-grain words (albeit cheesy) for whole-grain themes are best.
November 6, 2024
i want these poems to become a part of my consciousness omg.
i could cry at how raw and beautiful lee's writing is and how it speaks to me. he seeks not to make a statement but simply convey his experience of what he knows. he finds infinity, the extraordinary, within the mundane -- inside a permission, inside a cut made from a metal splinter, within dark hair. such an incredible poet. i hope my writing will someday have the same effect! i read this online but i wish i had a physical copy bc i would annotate and cherish it soooo much
i could cry at how raw and beautiful lee's writing is and how it speaks to me. he seeks not to make a statement but simply convey his experience of what he knows. he finds infinity, the extraordinary, within the mundane -- inside a permission, inside a cut made from a metal splinter, within dark hair. such an incredible poet. i hope my writing will someday have the same effect! i read this online but i wish i had a physical copy bc i would annotate and cherish it soooo much
February 18, 2025
I found Li-Young Lee because of an AP practice prompt (lol- I guess college board is good for something.)
He’s great at flowing from image to idea, turning from simple to profound in a line without artifice. Would read more
He’s great at flowing from image to idea, turning from simple to profound in a line without artifice. Would read more
September 29, 2025
Is this my father’s life or mine?
August 14, 2024
Stunning, need to read again in each successive stage of life. Especially beautiful writing on grief and loved ones. Looking forward to reading more of his work.
May 15, 2019
Immediately one of my favorite books. I had the opportunity to hear the author speak and give a reading at a conference in Indiana a few years ago and I was struck by his quiet charisma, attention to both the mundane and sublime, and sheer emotional honesty and tenderness. All those qualities come across strongly in Rose. There’s a strong sense of theme and memory running through the poems in this collections, and they’re all the stronger for it. It’s nearly impossible for me to pick out my favorites because I actually liked every single poem in here, but the rather lengthy “always a rose” was the one which hit me hardest. My only regret is not trying picking this book up sooner.
February 18, 2020
I had honestly hoped I would like this more than I did.
The first two sections were, in a lot of places, almost too metaphorical for my tastes. I don't say this lightly, either. I appreciate poetry as a unique style of writing that incorporates a lot of tactics that would not be appropriate for most other styles of writing. However, the structure of Lee's poems in sections I and II were very confusing to me, and I couldn't even begin to guess where the metaphor ended or began.
When we discussed some of these poems in class I understood them a little bit more, but they still don't exactly resonate with me, and I still struggle to find meaning in most of them.
Part III was more literal, and many of the poems in that section were easier for me to identify with, probably because they were closer to my own writing style. I appreciated the imagery in them more because I had a more complete understanding of the pieces.
I don't know if I would understand most of these poems or their metaphors or imagery any better if I were to reread the book. That said, I still probably will end up reading this again, and I hope I will be wrong about being able to find or create meaning in the future.
The first two sections were, in a lot of places, almost too metaphorical for my tastes. I don't say this lightly, either. I appreciate poetry as a unique style of writing that incorporates a lot of tactics that would not be appropriate for most other styles of writing. However, the structure of Lee's poems in sections I and II were very confusing to me, and I couldn't even begin to guess where the metaphor ended or began.
When we discussed some of these poems in class I understood them a little bit more, but they still don't exactly resonate with me, and I still struggle to find meaning in most of them.
Part III was more literal, and many of the poems in that section were easier for me to identify with, probably because they were closer to my own writing style. I appreciated the imagery in them more because I had a more complete understanding of the pieces.
I don't know if I would understand most of these poems or their metaphors or imagery any better if I were to reread the book. That said, I still probably will end up reading this again, and I hope I will be wrong about being able to find or create meaning in the future.
February 10, 2018
THE LIFE
My son grows limp
and heavy in my arms,
and I don’t need to see his face
to know his eyes are closed,
his jaw hangs slack.
After hours of rocking, and pacing, and humming—
not a melody, but what
he likes, the single syllable his grandmother
has intoned to him since his birth, a monotone
nasal wail approaching mourning—
he’s asleep, and I’m too tired
to get up from his chair, too dazed
to close my eyes, so keep
gaping out the window at the winter
sky, an hour ago black, now a deep blue,
and even as I think this, becoming
gray, the color changing
so fast, the light
coming so furiously that I think if I close my eyes and listen
I might hear grind
the great soft heart
of the sky. I close my eyes.
I listen.
I hear not the sky,
but the sea, or someone breathing near me,
and I watch
a boy ascend a ladder
into a ceiling of water, having slipped
out of his father’s lap and arms, and replacing
his precise weight there
with an earthen jar,
having fooled his poor father,
whose sleep has finally come
after long bitterness, after hours
of hard thoughts about winter,
and money, and the exhaustions of fathers,
and the exhaustions of sons, and their loves
and trusts that shall be breached,
and all of our essential, human separateness.
It is a depthless hour of sweetest sleep
as the man’s brow unwrinkles,
as if a hand had smoothed it,
the way a hand does a crushed
ball of paper, opens it,
smooths it, and smooths it,
so the poet might
begin again
his poem.
My son grows limp
and heavy in my arms,
and I don’t need to see his face
to know his eyes are closed,
his jaw hangs slack.
After hours of rocking, and pacing, and humming—
not a melody, but what
he likes, the single syllable his grandmother
has intoned to him since his birth, a monotone
nasal wail approaching mourning—
he’s asleep, and I’m too tired
to get up from his chair, too dazed
to close my eyes, so keep
gaping out the window at the winter
sky, an hour ago black, now a deep blue,
and even as I think this, becoming
gray, the color changing
so fast, the light
coming so furiously that I think if I close my eyes and listen
I might hear grind
the great soft heart
of the sky. I close my eyes.
I listen.
I hear not the sky,
but the sea, or someone breathing near me,
and I watch
a boy ascend a ladder
into a ceiling of water, having slipped
out of his father’s lap and arms, and replacing
his precise weight there
with an earthen jar,
having fooled his poor father,
whose sleep has finally come
after long bitterness, after hours
of hard thoughts about winter,
and money, and the exhaustions of fathers,
and the exhaustions of sons, and their loves
and trusts that shall be breached,
and all of our essential, human separateness.
It is a depthless hour of sweetest sleep
as the man’s brow unwrinkles,
as if a hand had smoothed it,
the way a hand does a crushed
ball of paper, opens it,
smooths it, and smooths it,
so the poet might
begin again
his poem.
March 1, 2023
"Rose" by Li-Young Lee is a beautiful book of poetry. This is the first book of Lee's poetry I have read, and I will certainly be reading his other poetry books.
The poems intertwine the past and present as he writes about his relationship with his family, specifically his father. Lee's writing is delicate, tender, humble, vulnerable, and honest, and his poetic words and phrases intertwine to create a gorgeous tapestry.
An absolutely beautiful collection of poems.
The poems intertwine the past and present as he writes about his relationship with his family, specifically his father. Lee's writing is delicate, tender, humble, vulnerable, and honest, and his poetic words and phrases intertwine to create a gorgeous tapestry.
An absolutely beautiful collection of poems.
November 26, 2019
Beauty within pain.
December 30, 2024
This is the best poetry book I’ve read. Li-Young Lee has touched something deep my god
Read
December 17, 2025my favorite poem from this book is called 'the life.' i read it while my son, ill and damp, slept on me.
February 21, 2023
this collection is beautiful. i had to read it for a class and i genuinely enjoyed it.
July 18, 2022
"Persimmons" is one of my favorite poems ever. Li-Young Lee is masterful at recreating moments in his childhood that clearly have shaped him to this day. He is a poet that I think writes very 'quietly', but makes every word significant.
He writes:
"Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class
and cut it up
so everyone could taste
a Chinese apple. Knowing
it wasn’t ripe or sweet, I didn’t eat
but watched the other faces."
I have had many moments like this where my culture or background was being presented falsely or insufficiently, and I could only watch and read faces to see what reactions would be around me. It is a feeling of powerlessness like no other, and Li-Young Lee was able to capture this. He also captures many aspects of family that is important and significant to me, within "Persimmons" and consistently through the collection. I may be biased as someone who can relate directly to a lot of his poems, but I think there is something universal for everyone to gain in reading this. I would also encourage listening to some of his readings of this collections, to see if it changes any of the poems for you. For me, I read them exactly as how he read them.
He writes:
"Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class
and cut it up
so everyone could taste
a Chinese apple. Knowing
it wasn’t ripe or sweet, I didn’t eat
but watched the other faces."
I have had many moments like this where my culture or background was being presented falsely or insufficiently, and I could only watch and read faces to see what reactions would be around me. It is a feeling of powerlessness like no other, and Li-Young Lee was able to capture this. He also captures many aspects of family that is important and significant to me, within "Persimmons" and consistently through the collection. I may be biased as someone who can relate directly to a lot of his poems, but I think there is something universal for everyone to gain in reading this. I would also encourage listening to some of his readings of this collections, to see if it changes any of the poems for you. For me, I read them exactly as how he read them.
July 3, 2016
I had this referred to me almost a year ago and hadn't touched it yet. Thinking of these poems as a collection Lee Young-Lee builds a library of images, rains, gardens, flowers and activities the everyday moments of combing hair or coming upon a napping family member but the poems do so much more than that especially in their expression of grief.
Really I can't stress how well the poems articulate loss and in a totally interior moment. The poems almost in a Wordsworth way hinge upon pairing great emotion with image and recollection but they feel fresh unforced and as raw as the onions the speaker digs up from his garden. He writes "then he lay down/to sleep like a snow covered road/ winding through pines older than him,/without any travelers, and lonely for no one." In "eating together"
Definitely this is a collection to search out and read. I'll be looking for more collections by this poet.
Really I can't stress how well the poems articulate loss and in a totally interior moment. The poems almost in a Wordsworth way hinge upon pairing great emotion with image and recollection but they feel fresh unforced and as raw as the onions the speaker digs up from his garden. He writes "then he lay down/to sleep like a snow covered road/ winding through pines older than him,/without any travelers, and lonely for no one." In "eating together"
Definitely this is a collection to search out and read. I'll be looking for more collections by this poet.
January 25, 2018
4.5
"always a rose" is hands down the best poem i have read in a while!! i really loved it SO much, i usually don't have good attention span for poems longer than like.......3 pages.....but this was!! great!! i also really enjoyed "dreaming of hair" and "water" ("water" was much better than i expected. it resonated w/ me) oh also "persimmons" but yeah overall i loved this!!
"always a rose" is hands down the best poem i have read in a while!! i really loved it SO much, i usually don't have good attention span for poems longer than like.......3 pages.....but this was!! great!! i also really enjoyed "dreaming of hair" and "water" ("water" was much better than i expected. it resonated w/ me) oh also "persimmons" but yeah overall i loved this!!
May 15, 2019
It's the most famous, popular, and considered of Lee's books and for good reason. The best poems are poems you'll come across out in the online poetry landscape. My favorites: "Eating Together," "I Ask My Mother to Sing," and "Visions and Interpretations." Not my favorite of his poetry collections but it's pretty much perfect.
November 18, 2020
I recently came across Li-Young Lee's The city in which I love you, and it made me want to read all of his poetry. And hence, this book.
I loved loved loved it. I loved so much of it. All of it.
The poem that I loved the most: After Rose and Ash, Snow, or Moonlight.
I loved loved loved it. I loved so much of it. All of it.
The poem that I loved the most: After Rose and Ash, Snow, or Moonlight.
December 16, 2008
The poems in this book manage to be at once firmly, richly material––filled with solid, sensual things––and ethereal, metaphysical.
May 22, 2016
Absolutely gorgeous poems about love and mourning.
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