Li-Young Lee's poem, "I Ask My Mother To Sing"

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

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Category: Literature - L