13 Lee, Li-Young // Gifts of Gold    Jennifer

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.

It seems to me that the importance of this first line is to contrast the painful, sharp image of the splinter with the peaceful image of the father. The author seems to desire no ambiguity in the given impression of the father’s deed. While removing the painful splinter, the father is reciting a story in a low voice. The reader cannot take this to be a violent description of abuse because there are no adjectives, no descriptors to support that theory.

I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
This is an intriguing image, for men, who are usually never associated with the word lovely, but rather with harsher images… referred to as handsome or distinguished, rather than lovely, which implies a certain vulnerability in the pictured face. It also reveals the depth of the relationship between the father and the son, the reliance of the son upon the father’s face is one of pure faith and trust. This image is incredibly beautiful and allows the reader to participate in the love between son and father.

Before the story ended, he'd removed
the iron sliver I thought I'd die from.

This passage gives a cute insight into the childish mind of the speaker, who has dramatized the mere sliver in his palm into a traumatic death sentence. This line also reveals the extent the father had to battle in order to relax the drama his son found in the simple sliver.

I can't remember the tale,
The story didn’t matter, only the close contact and the love of the father mattered. This reminds me of a child who, when injured, asks a parent to kiss the injury. The kiss may not help the bleeding, but it does show love and affection.

but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
These two lines give an insight into the twists and turns of the father’s voice. The reader is forced to pause between the word ‘voice’ and ‘still’, pausing to allow the words to roll over the tongue as the father’s words must have slid into the sons perked ears. The smooth, rolling sounds continue through ‘a well of dark water’, bringing the depth and infinite darkness of the well into the mind of the reader. The father’s voice is coined in the last two words. A prayer is deep and reverent, quietly compassionate in its depth, care, and focus. The son sees this depth in his father’s voice and face.

And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.

Again, the reader is not allowed to accept an abusive relationship between the father and son. The father’s hands as ‘flames of discipline’ are spoken of only after the young son qualifies them as measures of tenderness. As a reader, I connect the two images, believing that the father’s discipline is out of love, rather than a need to hurt. The father is the loving parent, so though he is compassionate and understanding of the sliver, he will guide his son as the adult in their relationship.

Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy's palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
What did the father plant in his son’s palm? The father definitely showed his son what love is, as he helped him through the drama of his pain. But perhaps the father also gave his son a sense of what he should be like in the future. He gave him a flame that would burn within him throughout his life. This interpretation of the flame follows to the next few lines, which speak of the boy’s future as a man.

Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife's right hand.

Just as the cycle of violence is said to continue, so is the cycle of compassion. The son has learned from the father and is applying his knowledge in his daily life.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.

I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,

These two lines seem to express a sense of the speaker’s disbelief in the purity of his memory of his father. Disbelief that at his age and married, he can still recall the significance of his father’s voice, hands, and skill.

and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!

This seems to be a return to a child-like response to a small trauma. The torrent of tears that come from the smallest of events. Only a child could see a metal sliver as causing death as an assassin who aims for the heart. But the importance of this group of phrases is that the boy in the poem did not react this way, the way a normal child would. This leads the reader to the next two sentences, curious as to the result of the father’s touch and love.

I did what a child does
when he's given something to keep.
I kissed my father.

Lifelong Lessons from Father Figure

"The Gift" by Li-Young Lee

Already have had hearing an interview with Li-Young Lee, I know how he truly respects his father to the utmost degree. Lee talked about how he feared his father while at the same time felt his tenderness and love. Both "The Gift" and "A Story" illustrate this. In "The Gift" Lee is the gracious son who has learned how tenderness and discipline can coexist and how these were gifts passed on to him by his father. Lee speaks of how his "father recited a story in a low voice" and how this meant so much to him because he watched his face while his father took out the splinter, only hearing the deep voice and sensing his hands. Later, in "A Story," he feels like he has failed his father and himself with his own son because he cannot fabricate a story to tell his anxious son, realizing that one day his son will turn away from him like he did to his father. The cycle of familial relationships that rises out of these poems is very intriguing!

I believe that one stanza really captures how Lee is telling us about the gift his father gave him. The third stanza draws the reader in and swings and hustles him/her amidst the words. "Had you entered that afternoon / you would have thought you saw a man" (Lee, "The Gift," Rag and Bone Shop, 136) signifies to me if I would have eavesdropped on the situation although I already feel as if I am the son staring wide-eyed up at my father's deep, intoxicating voice, I would have thought or imagined or misunderstood my sight of a man who was "planting something in a boy's palm" (Lee, "The Gift," Rag and Bone Shop, 136). What an odd image that a father would be dropping a little something into the open wound in a boy's hand.

Earlier in the poem from "pull the metal splinter from my palm" and "he'd removed / the iron silver I thought I'd die from" plus more, there is a distinct reverence and almost image of how Jesus might have been comforted by his "father." Again, the word palm sneaks it way into the poem here and now the man is planting "a silver tear, a tiny flame" into the boy's palm (Lee, "The Gift," Rag and Bone Shop, 136). These are very different, yet somehow gentle images that seem to go together although they contrast each other. A silver tear leaves me puzzled--is this a reference to something I'm not understanding? Yet I think of a silver tear as a raindrop, perhaps fallen before from the father's face, giving the boy new energy and an understanding of emotions. The tiny flame is a beautiful image because it is small, like the boy, and in size it is only just beginning yet it is being planted within the boy's hand to stretch out to the rest of his body and become a blazing, uncontrollable passion toward life.

After this the reader is pondering what exactly was planted in the boy's hand, what that magical thing was the father seemed to have dropped inside his boy, and then is brought to the present moment, here: "Had you followed that boy / you would have arrived here" (Lee, "The Gift," Rag and Bone Shop, 136). Where is here? Where had the boy been to get to here? What would I have had to follow him through to get to here? Is he still a boy here? What if I hadn't followed the boy, where would I have arrived? So what is here?: "where I bend over my wife's right hand" (Lee, "The Gift," Rag and Bone Shop, 136). This is the first time in this stanza he addresses the young boy as being himself, now that he's older and using the same hand that his father implanted a sense of tenderness and respect to kiss his wife's hand in respect. In the next stanza he goes to take on the role of his father but instead interacting with his wife and filing her nails carefully to remove the splinter. This man's father did not give him a hard heart or make him see life as if a wrong turn equated death, no, this man learned great lessons about tenderness and respect by loving those around him.

There are distinct words floating about this poem which bring it to life. The sliver which causes pain and distress at first in contrast to the silver tear his father planted in his palm. The splinter embedded deep when the hand carefully eases it out as he does to his wife later. His father's hands, "two measures of tenderness" that he thinks of later as he holds his wife's hand (Lee, "The Gift," Rag and Bone Shop, 136). There are certain words and images that seem out of place or else I'm not sure where they fit in, such as: "the flames of discipline / he raised above my head" or "Metal that will bury me, / christen it Little Assassin, / Ore Going Deep for My Heart" (Lee, "The Gift," Rag and Bone Shop, 136). Why is that last line all in capitals? What does this mean, especially because he did not think this?

These lines remind me of my childhood when my dad or mom would put me to bed, and I'd ask them to tell a story or sing a song. If I had heard it before, like the boy in poem, I would ask for a different one. "Baba"--is that a nickname for his dad? The equivalent of "dad" in a different language? Lee's parents were Chinese. "Not the same story"--this implies the child is bored, impatient. It reminds me that our society grows tired when we think life becomes monotonous. We like new things, though we often don't like change.

"posit" means to affirm or assume the existence of

"supplication" means to ask for humbly, earnestly as by praying

Even after reading this poem many times, I am still confused by the ending. The father cannot honor the boy's simple request because he cannot think of a story. That is too simple. "Silence" is a powerful word. Because the father loves the boy, he feels he is keeping the boy safe by not telling him stories of the outside world, stories that might make the boy try to reach heaven, try to reach God??? In his silence, the father thinks he is protecting himself and his son from future pain when they both have to break away from each other. However, if he is silent, they will never have a chance to really know one another. We once again have the reference to "equation" (mentioned earlier in the poem). The boy's humble request for a story, "supplication" + the father's love = silence.

Sad is the man who is asked for a story

The first word of this poem is "sad". For me this sets a solemn tone and creates confusion at the end of the first line. It would seem a man asking for a story is a nice thing. Now I notice that the man isn't asking, but asked, this has already happened and there is more to this story.

and can't come up with one.

This line makes the previous complete and concrete. The expression "come up with" grabs my attention. I wonder where this is coming from. I like thinking of this as coming up. It seems to me that we would think of a wonderful story and it would fall from our thoughts to our mouth and suffer verbal transmission. Coming up with a story implies a story rises, but a man that cannot create makes the mood very sad.

 His five-year-old son waits in his lap.

The boy is so young, there should be nothing between them holding the father back. This time is special to the boy, he waits, the patience of a five-year-old is a rare commodity.

The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.

I can see the father as one who has seen the tumultuous world and holds tightly to stability. This man seems characteristically male and familiar, but the boy uses "Baba" which sounds foreign and exotic to me. The author is getting to a universal level. The boy asks his father for something new, which for him is almost everything and the father has thousands of experiences the boy has not, but labors to bring just one to his son.

In a room full of books in a world

This is a powerful image for me. The room of books is his father's life, documented. That room exists in a world, it is almost impossible that his father cannot pick something from his library, but he doesn't just have this library, he can make something from the everything in the world.

will give up on his father.

(I didn't mean to write a synopsis of this stanza in my previous notes, it was subconcious I suppose.) These lines are wonderful, but sad. Each line is connected to the next. The image of a man telling his boy a story is so beautiful, I want there to be verbal communication, I want something to happen to change this unwaveringly calm and sad mood. The end of each line leads me to hope that the man will begin his story, but the begining of the next lets me down. "he can recall...not one" "the boy...will give up" In this second quote the author turns back to the boy, the young, catalytic, imaginative, but I am let down. The boy gives up, moves on, moves up to something else.

Already the man lives far ahead, he sees

This reminds me of some fathers I have met, it also reminds me of myself greatly. The man is looking ahead, he is protecting his security. He is preparing himself for a time that may never be.

Let me tell it!

The man is pouring his emotion, his creativity, his passion into an event in his head. This event is only happening in his head, while the boy sits waiting in his lap. He should be sharing himself with his child, but he uses his thoughts for something imaginative, but it is for himself. He even imagines some stories for his child, he doesn't just give them to his child. His voice changes to the italics instead of the child's. This inner-dialog shows the man's creativity and expression, but this is all internal.

But the boy is packing his shirts,

he is looking for his keys. Are you a god

The roles are still reversed, the boy is doing the rational, logical, while the father becomes impassioned and angry. The boy is looking for his keys, symbolic of his responsibilities and securities. I think the keys can also symbolize his independence and freedom from his father's life. The keys can also be like the keys his father searches for. His father is bound by his logic and cannot unlock his emotion and allow it to pass into the world. The grown boy is dealing with his own rationality.

Am I a god that I should never disappoint?

The man struggles with himself. He is not uncaring or unfeeling as someone watching him might think. He realizes the folley of his ponderings, his anger falls on himself. I think there is something to the "are you a god...am I a god" statements. I think many men try to be everything to everyone (forgive the phrase, I listen to too much everclear) or try to perfect every word. I see myself in this same inner-dialog daily.

It is an emotional rather than logical question,

These lines are encouraging to me and plainly labels the man's strangulating logic. It is encouraging that the boy is still there, the man understands, and the father still has the chance to tell his son the story. This second line clearly identifies the father's overwhelming logic. What is interesting is that the father is emotional within his logical. The emotional is present, it does not escape into the world. The boy still speaks in the italics, in the emotional. The man cannot speak this way.

and a father's love add up to silence.

This ending shows the circular nature of the father-son relationship and the transfer of ideals. My dictionary gave this for a definition of supplicate: To ask for humbly and earnestly by or as if by praying to God (Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary, 1984). This is interesting considering the lines about trying to be a god. The boy sees his father as a god, he knows his dad loves him. He knows that his requests and his questions lead to silence. What is most intriguing to me is that the father sees this and his inability to express emotion to his child and dislikes it. The boy thinks this is love, but not until he is grown will he see there is a better way, then he will search for his keys.

14 Li-Young Lee // Of Men and Minstrels

This poem starts with such an active statement. It sounds like a proverb. A line that speaks of wisdom and lessons to be learned. The premise at first being that creativity is so important, but upon further inspection speaks of the importance for a bond of communication, because it doesn't say sad is the man who has no stories, but sad is the man who can't come up with one. As if it all rests upon one moment, one defining moment, a turning point where the man will be asked for a story and if he can not come up with one then all is lost.

His five-year-old son waits in his lap.

Not the same story, Baba. A new one.

The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.

And now it happens that he cannot give his son the world. This is so important to every father son relationship, and it always happens... Suddenly Dad doesnt have the answers that the son seeks and he is forced to look outside of his fathers world.

In a room full of books in a world

of stories, he can recall

not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy

will give up on his father.

This the fear of every father that there son will look back and say that he cannot learn from his father.

Already the man lives far ahead, he sees

the day this boy will go. Don't go!

Like any son he must one day leave, and will he take the life lessons of his father or will he grasp out for his own. Does he leave because there is nothing left for him? The father knows of the day that must come in any parenting situation. It is the time when the child leaves and it gives him fear. Suddenly an impact of responsibility with every action. The father must look to the future with everything he does.

Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!

You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.

Let me tell it!

This parent to child, this father to son... There is that day when a parent can no longer keep the child within his arms and how does a father react. I feel like the past few years the world has denied that there are gender roles within men that restrict them too. It is something that our constant strive for equality has put upon us. Is it wrong to say that a father to a son has a special bond that no woman will understand... No!. Just as there is a bond between mother and daughter. Father and son share a bond that cannot be expressed in emotion as our world has restrained men and emotions but it is still there and it is just as powerful. A man can find just as much emotional meaning by playing catch as a female can emoting. That is not to say men dont emote and women dont understand catch, it is to say that there is something different between men and women. A father to a son is something women cant understand and they never will. Hear is a father at the crossroads with his son, he knows how it will go.

But the boy is packing his shirts,

he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,

the man screams, that I sit mute before you?

Am I a god that I should never disappoint?

.

But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?

It is an emotional rather than logical equation,

an earthly rather than heavenly one,

which posits that a boy's supplications

and a father's love add up to silence.

And who can understand that silence is so full of emotion then a father and a son.