Li-Young Lee's poem, "I Ask My Mother to Sing," is a postmodern, autobiographical lyrical poem filled with emotion and the power of memory and nostalgia. The poem evokes a set of emotions in the poet that he expresses through visual mental pictures of what he hears and sees. Four stanzas of 14 lines, the first three stanzas are four lines each, and the final, climactic stanza consists of two lines. The title of the poem is actually the first line of the poem, setting the stage for the action that follows. Fusing memory, family, culture and nature, Lee's poem signifies the immigrant experience of loss and memory.
The title along with the first stanza introduces the poem's four characters: the poet, his mother and his grandmother, and his dead father. "I Ask My Mother to Sing/She begins, and my grandmother joins hera./If my father were alive, he would play his accordiona" (lines 1-4). The bittersweet, sad tone of the poem evokes a sense of cultural loss conjuring up memories of the past. The mother and grandmother's memories are direct experiences. The poet/narrator's experience is more indirect; he learns from listening to the song. An implication is that the poet is not asking his mother to sing for the first time but this is a request that is repeated over time to bring the past life in China to life in the present. It this way, the song represents a ritual, a kind of ceremonial remembrance of a past life from which the poet/narrator can learn of his heritage and a way of life different from his present. Thus the song of his mother and grandmother pass on his native culture to the poet.
I've never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,
nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch
the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the picnickers
But I love to hear it sung; (lines 5-9).
The next three lines depict images the poet hears and sees of the beauty of nature experienced by the older generation, im
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