Li-Young Lee Quotes

• People who read poetry have heard about the burning bush, but when you write poetry, you sit inside the burning bush.

  Li-Young Lee

  Reading, Writing, People

  56 Copy quote

• While all bodies share the same fate, all voices do not.

  Li-Young Lee

  Fate, Voice, Body

  "Behind My Eyes: Poems". Book by Li-Young Lee, 2008.

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• Every time you write a poem it’s apocalyptic. You’re revealing who you really are to yourself.

  Li-Young Lee

  Writing, Revealing, Apocalyptic

  18 Copy quote

• Memory is sweet. Even when it’s painful, memory is sweet.

  Li-Young Lee

  Sweet, Memories, Painful

  Li-Young Lee, Earl G. Ingersoll (2006). “Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee”, p.17, BOA Editions, Ltd.

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• That's what I want, that kind of recklessness where the poem is even ahead of you. It's like riding a horse that's a little too wild for you, so there's this tension between what you can do and what the horse decides it's going to do.

  Li-Young Lee

  Horse, Riding, Want

  Li-Young Lee, Earl G. Ingersoll (2006). “Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee”, p.128, BOA Editions, Ltd.

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• I've been thinking about something for a long time, and I keep noticing that most human speech-if not all human speech-is made with the outgoing breath. This is the strange thing about presence and absence. When we breath in, our bodies are filled with nutrients and nourishment. Our blood is filled with oxygen, our skin gets flush; our bones get harder-they get compacted. Our muscles get toned and we feel very present when we're breathing in. The problem is, that when we're breathing in, we can't speak. So presence and silence have something to do with each other.

  Li-Young Lee

  Thinking, Oxygen, Blood

  "The Totality of Causes". Interview with Tina Chang, www.poets.org. February 21, 2014.

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• 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.

  Li-Young Lee

  Sweet, Wings, Joy

  Li-Young Lee (1986). “Rose: Poems”, p.21, BOA Editions, Ltd.

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• Poetry is the language of extremity. Poetry is a transfer of potency. You feel something potent and then you transfer it onto the page.

  Li-Young Lee

  Pages, Language, Potency

  14 Copy quote

• Brimming. That's what it is, I want to get to a place where my sentences enact brimming.

  Li-Young Lee

  Want, Sentences

  Li-Young Lee, Earl G. Ingersoll (2006). “Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee”, p.77, BOA Editions, Ltd.

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• Maybe being winged means being wounded by infinity.

  Li-Young Lee

  Mean, Infinity, Wounded

  Li-Young Lee (2009). “Behind My Eyes: Poems”, p.82, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The knowledge that it takes to write a poem gets burnt up in the writing of the poem.

  Li-Young Lee

  Writing

  11 Copy quote

• Some things never leave a person:
  scent of the hair of one you love,
  the texture of persimmons,
  in your palm, the ripe weight.

  Li-Young Lee

  Hair, Texture, Weight

  Li-Young Lee (1986). “Rose: Poems”, p.19, BOA Editions, Ltd.

  10 Copy quote

• The lyric self is the self; the narrative self is not.

  Li-Young Lee

  Self, Narrative

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Li-Young Lee

  Fathers Day, Dad, Prayer

  Li-Young Lee (1986). “Rose: Poems”, p.15, BOA Editions, Ltd.

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• The problem with memory is that is changes whatever it touches. It is never that accurate. As a result, I end up modifying and revising my own experiences. It's myth making.

  Li-Young Lee

  Memories, Problem, Storytelling

  9 Copy quote

• We suffer each other to have each other a while.

  Li-Young Lee

  Suffering

  Li-Young Lee (1990). “The City in which I Love You: Poems”, p.68, BOA Editions, Ltd.

  10 Copy quote

• In writing poetry, all of one's attention is focused on some inner voice.

  Li-Young Lee

  Writing, Voice, Attention

  11 Copy quote

• I don't mind suffering as long as it's really about something. I don't mind great luck, if it's about something. If it's the hollow stuff, then there's no gift, one way or the other.

  Li-Young Lee

  Long, Luck, Mind

  Li-Young Lee, Earl G. Ingersoll (2006). “Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee”, p.49, BOA Editions, Ltd.

  9 Copy quote

• Could it be in longing we are most ourselves?

  Li-Young Lee

  Longing

  7 Copy quote

• Our bodies look solid, but they arent. Were like a fountain. A fountain of water looks solid, but you can put your fingers right through it. Our bodies look like things, but theres no thingness to them.

  Li-Young Lee

  Water, Looks, Body

  12 Copy quote

• A poem is like a score for the human voice.

  Li-Young Lee

  Voice, Score, Humans

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• Memory revises me.
  Even now a letter
  comes from a place
  I don’t know, from someone
  with my name
  and postmarked years ago,
  while I await
  injunctions from the light
  or the dark;
  I wait for shapeliness
  limned, or dissolution.
  Is paradise due or narrowly missed
  until another thousand years?
  I wait
  in a blue hour
  and faraway noise of hammering,
  and on a page a poem begun, something
  about to be dispersed,
  something about to come into being.

  Li-Young Lee

  Memories, Dark, Light

  Li-Young Lee (1990). “The City in which I Love You: Poems”, p.14, BOA Editions, Ltd.

  7 Copy quote

• A bruise, blue in the muscle, you impinge upon me. As bone hugs the ache home, so I'm vexed to love you, your body the shape of returns, your hair a torso of light, your heat I must have, your opening I'd eat, each moment of that soft-finned fruit, inverted fountain in which I don't see me.

  Li-Young Lee

  Love You, Home, Light

  Li-Young Lee, “The City In Which I Loved You”

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• I am that last, that final thing, the body in a white sheet listening.

  Li-Young Lee

  White, Listening, Body

  Li-Young Lee (1990). “The city in which I love you: poems”, BOA Editions Ltd.

  7 Copy quote

• And I never believed that the multitude / of dreams and many words were vain.

  Li-Young Lee

  Dream, Vain, Multitudes

  Li-Young Lee (1990). “The City in which I Love You: Poems”, p.57, BOA Editions, Ltd.

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