Overview

A chapbook of new and selected mother poems by celebrated poet Li-Young Lee. I Ask My Mother to Sing contains five decades of poems by the acclaimed Asian-American poet, Li-Young Lee about his own mother and the many meanings of motherhood. This collection follows Lee's entire career, from his debut Rose (BOA, 1986) to his most recent book, The Invention of the Darling (W.W. Norton, 2024). The chapbook also includes seven new and previously unpublished poems. Sample poem: The Inheritance Mother, your hair has fallen for the last time, and I can't raise it up. And I can't put it down. I can't leave it on the ground. The ground is too crowded with the living, too teeming with the dead. I can't store it in the sky. The sky's too full of birds and clouds and airplanes. And the seas are full of mountains and creatures and ships coming and going. And as long as earth turns, all of the seasons are full of days. There's no place to lay your hair down. Sleep won't have it. Your hair whispers too many secrets and stories. Night doesn't want it. There are no stars your hair won't swallow. When you were alive, you gathered it, bound it, and piled it, to balance on the top of your head. A small black urn, it shone. Later, it shone white. But your hair has come undone once and for all time, and what was one now is many. What started at your crown, now has no beginning. What stopped at your waist, now has no end. Now can't be collected or dispersed. Now neither story nor song can comb or weigh. Now has no measure or address. Now can't be counted or left out. And I can't carry it. And I can't put it down.

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9780819502032

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Reviews

""Lee's work is often about the ways in which personal life can be understood as ceremony: his poems are nearly Eucharistic in their stately mingling of body and belief, blood and words.""--Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker ""Lee has become one of the most influential lyric practitioners of our time, not only for Asian Americans like myself, but for poets all across the globe.""--Ocean Voung, Poetry Magazine ""Whether readers are new to these poems or already familiar with Lee's work, they can get a great feel for a classic poet at a reasonable price. As both a reader and the editor of a chapbook-focused magazine, I hope Wesleyan University Press keeps these gems coming.""--Aiden Hunt, New Pages

""Lee's work is often about the ways in which personal life can be understood as ceremony: his poems are nearly Eucharistic in their stately mingling of body and belief, blood and words.""--Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker ""Lee has become one of the most influential lyric practitioners of our time, not only for Asian Americans like myself, but for poets all across the globe.""--Ocean Voung, Poetry Magazine

Author Information

LI-YOUNG LEE is the author of six books of poetry. He has received many honors for his writing including the 2024 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a Lannan Literary Award, a Whiting Award, the American Book Award, and more. OLIVER EGGER is a poet, editor, and journalist. He is the editor of I Said That Love Heals From Inside: Love Poems of Yusef Komunyakaa (Wesleyan, 2024).

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