WEBVTT

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Thank you so much.

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Thank you all for coming tonight
AND the Poetry Center, as

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always, for hosting us.

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I am so delighted to be able to
introduce Li-Young Lee to you.

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In 1976, the
groundbreaking anthology,

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Another Republic came out,
offering works in translation

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by 17 European and
South American writers--

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writers who had become
influential to contemporary US

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poetry--

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Francis Ponge, Zbigniew
Herbert, Julio Cortazar,

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Fernando Pessoa, Yehuda Amichai,
Czeslaw Milosz, Nicanor Parra.

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Yes, they were all
men, but let's not hold

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that against them.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Charles Simic and Mark
Strand, the editors,

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described the book
as a cosmology

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of a particular
historical period,

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nothing more, nothing less.

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The poets were split into two
categories, the mythological

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and the historical.

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One concerning itself
with the unconscious,

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a phenomenological
interrogation,

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a method for uncovering and
using archetypal imagery.

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The other concerning
itself with the awareness

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that, despite our
Utopian yearnings,

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we live in a world of wars,
famine, and faithlessness

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and that bearing witness to
the social and political events

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of our time matters.

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It was a book that profoundly
influenced and challenged me

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as a youngish poet,
trying to discern

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what this art form was that I
had been so profoundly drawn

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to.

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I hadn't thought of this
anthology for decades

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until, in the past few
weeks, I read and reread

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all of Li-Young Lee's
poetry and poetry books

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in preparation for
his visit here.

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I see now, to my
astonishment and admiration,

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that his poems swim in both
of these streams, mythic

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introspection about
what it might mean

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to be an ensouled
creature and witness

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bearing to the
suffering of exiles

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and the sense of dislocation
that defines the refugee

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experience.

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Li-Young Lee was born
in Jakarta, Indonesia

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in 1957, his parents
Chinese political essays.

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Lee's great grandfather, I
believe, on his mother's side

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was the first president
of the Republic of China.

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And Lee's father had been
the personal physician

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to Mao Zedong.

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There's also some gangsters
in there somewhere, I think.

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Driven away by
political oppression,

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the family fled to
Indonesia, where

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Lee's father became
an evangelical pastor

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and taught at University.

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Lee's father loved
the King James Bible,

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taught it as literature,
and read it often aloud.

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Its music comes into
Li-Young Lee's poetry

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as an unabashed biblical
lyricism and the poet's

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ongoing relationship
with God, who or which

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is represented in such
stunning metaphors

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as God, that old furnace or,
I'm the proof God is distilling.

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He has said that he
considers every poem

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to be a descendant of God.

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When anti-Chinese sentiment
rose under President Sukarno's

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nationalism in
Indonesia, Lee's father

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was arrested, held as
a political prisoner

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for over a year.

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After his release, the family
fled from Hong Kong to Macau

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to Japan, arriving in the
United States in 1964,

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where his father became
a Presbyterian minister.

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Traveling, Li-Young writes,
republic to republic, oligarchy

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to anarchy, to
democracy, we arrive.

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And in the 2008 book, Behind
My Eyes, he writes in the poem,

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"Self-Help For Fellow Refugees,"
if your name suggests a country

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where bells might have
been used for entertainment

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or to announce the entrances
and exits of seasons

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or the birthdays
of gods and demons,

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it's probably best to dress in
plain clothes when you arrive

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in the United States and
try not to talk too loud.

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Li-Young Lee is the
author of five books

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of poems and a memoir.

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His first book, Rose
came out in 1986,

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selected by Gerald
Stern, who celebrated him

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for his large vision,
deep seriousness, and art,

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and who wrote, I think we are
in the presence of true spirit.

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How true that has proved to be
over the subsequent decades.

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Among his distinctions, Delmore
Schwartz Memorial Award,

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Lamont Poetry Selection of
the American Academy of Poems,

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the William Carlos
Williams award,

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and the distinguished
semester he

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spent in our U of A MFA program.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Throughout HIS
books, the subjects

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of death, intimacy,
family, and exile pervade.

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The poems are infused
with humility and wisdom.

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I did not know that the soul is
cleaved so that the soul might

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be restored.

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Yes, he seems death-haunted,
exile-haunted,

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and God-haunted,
yet, somehow, he

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makes of this haunting
an affirmation.

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To say yes to life is
to say yes to death.

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To say no to death is
to say no to living.

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And what do you tell yourself
about being and being gone?

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The most recent
book, The Undressing,

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published by Norton in 2018 it
seems even more metaphysical,

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deeper, though
grounded, as always,

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in the particularities of
the world's unread history

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and the conundrums
of love and death.

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It has an uncanny
way of slowing down

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time in long, ruminative poems
like, "Virtues of the Boring

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Husband," in which
he helps his wife

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go to sleep by talking
aloud to her in bed,

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an incredibly extended and
loving act of patience.

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[LAUGHTER]

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In the long title
poem, "The Undressing,"

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an erotic undressing
is partnered

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with the undressing of the inner
life, that intimacy, occasions.

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The poem arouses body and mind
and the long, quiet, delicious

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pas de deux of connection
and separation.

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But of course, you
are here tonight

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to let his beautiful poems
speak for themselves.

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So I am happy to
ask you to join me

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to welcome back to Tucson the
much-beloved poet, Li-Young

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Lee.

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[APPLAUSE]

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