outline_us_lit

(1939- ) is an example: In hispoems, relationships are a meansof knowing. In some poets, respectfor family and community carrieswith it a sense of affirmation, if notan explicitly devotional sensibility.This is not a conservative poetry;often it confronts change, loss, andstruggle with the powers of ethnicor non-Western literary tradition.Lucille Clifton (1936- ) findssolace in the black community. Hercolloquial language and strong faithare a potent combination. The movingelegies to his mother of AghaShahid Ali (1949-2001) draw on adazzling array of classical MiddleEastern poetic forms, intertwininghis mother’s life with the sufferingof his family’s native Kashmir.Malaysian-Chinese AmericanShirley Geok-lin Lim (1944- ) powerfullycontrasts her difficult familyin Malaysia with her new family inCalifornia. Chicana poet Lorna DeeCervantes memorializes her harsh,impoverished family life inCalifornia; Louise Erdrich bringsher unpredictable, tragicomicNative-American family membersto vital life.Li-Young Lee (1957- )Tragic history arches over Li-Young Lee, whose Chinese-bornfather, at one time a physician toMao Tse-tung, was later imprisonedin Indonesia. Born in Jakarta,Indonesia, Lee lived the life of arefugee, moving with his family toHong Kong, Macao, and Japanbefore finding refuge in the UnitedStates, where his father became aLI-YOUNG LEEPhoto © Dorothy AlexanderProtestant minister in Pennsylvania.Lee won acclaim for his booksRose (1986) and The City in Which ILove You (1990).Lee is sensuous, filial — hemovingly depicts his family and hisfather’s decline — and outspokenin his commitment to the spiritualdimensions of poetry. His mostinfluential poem, “Persimmons”(1986), from his book Rose, evokeshis Asian background through thepersimmon, a fruit little known inthe United States. Fruits and flowersare traditional subjects ofChinese art and poetry, but unusualin the West. The poem contains apointed yet humorous critique of aprovincial schoolteacher Leeencountered in the United Stateswho presumes to understand persimmonsand language.Lee’s poem “Irises” (1986), fromthe same volume, suggests that wedrift through a “dream of life” but,like the iris, “waken dying — violetbecoming blue, growing / black,black.” The poem and its handlingof color resonate with Glück’s wildiris.The title poem of The City inWhich I Love You announces Lee’saffirmative entrance into a largercommunity of poetry. It ends:my birthplace vanished, mycitizenship earned,in league with stones of the earth, Ienter, without retreat or helpfrom history,the days of no day, my earthof no earth, I re-enter127