This past Thursday, April 15, acclaimed poet Li-Young Lee read several of his poems at the Baltimore Museum of Art as a part of the seventh annual Joshua Ringel Memorial Reading. Lee has published Book of My Nights (2001), The City in Which I Love You (1991) and Rose (1986), which won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. He selected seven poems to read to the nearly packed auditorium of at least a hundred people, many of which were students and faculty at the Johns Hopkins University.
Lee began with a poem he had titled The Hammock which he dedicated to his mother for her birthday some time ago. Before he began reading the poem, Lee explained that he had "written it, trying to remember when [he] first experienced time." Though the manner in which he read it suggested otherwise, the poem itself was unclear, dreary and not nearly as entertaining as his introduction. His reading was rather dry, and a bit simple, creating an element of ambiguity about the meaning of the poem. The tone and expression with which he wrote and later read his own poetry was a colder, insensate yet personal, reclusive voice, as opposed to the voice with which he spoke freely about his poetry and life, which was warmer, clever, and rather charming.
Unfortunately, Mr. Lee seemed to try to bring more meaning to something that could not possibly be more than it was. This was especially the case in a poem titled "Have You Prayed?" a melancholic recollection of his father always asking him whether or not he had done his prayers. The manner with which Lee read his poem led the audience to believe that there was a deeper meaning behind the poem, when it seemed to be solely about the surface topic, and nothing more. This may have been because his cutting phrases shorter than one would expect or leave random words out of them for no apparent reason - possibly a tactic to trick the audience into believing that there was a hidden meaning, incomprehensible without a further study of the poem.
At some point towards the end of the reading, it occurred to me that Mr. Lee should probably write more prose, rather than poetry, as the way in which he expresses himself when he tells his stories is so much more clever and free, and generally more enjoyable. At times it felt as if he was trying to achieve the stereotypical somber, thoughtful, stuff-more-meaning-than-will-fit-into-one-word poet, resulting in a rather pretentious quality. His keenness for intricate details, however, was intriguing and allowed for his poetry to stand as a unique perspective on life.
