books 2007: The City in Which I Love You, by Li-Young Lee

[supercheesegirl]

Read this Friday afternoon on the way to the airport to meet Fritz. In addition to reading all the poetry books I own that I've never read, I also want to start rereading all my favorite poetry books, in the interest of refreshing my poetical senses for writing again. This book is one of my all-time favorite poetry books, and also one of the first modern poetry books I ever read. It had been a long time since I read it, but I was so happy to read it again. It still gives me chills in a lot of places. The City in Which I Love You, for me, represents a perfect blending of the more narrative style of Lee's earlier work (in his first collection, Rose), and the more abstract style of everything he wrote after this, most of which I really disliked. My favorite poems in this collection are "Ruins" and "This Room And Everything In It". I think this is his best, most beautiful book, and I love it.

Comments

[apostrophe-esss.livejournal.com]

You know what would be really cool? If every day you typed in to LJ one of your favorite poems. Because you're always talking about them and I don't know them, and I'd like to, and maybe it would make me start writing again if I read a poem every day. Eh?

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

I wish I had that kind of time every day, but I really really don't. I'm still hoping to type up my couscous salad recipe to post. But I will try to post poems more often for you, darling.

[queende.livejournal.com]

i googled "this room and everything in it" and it was beautiful!

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

Yay!! It's such an amazing poem. :) :)

[amedia.livejournal.com]

One of the happy memories I have from Teh Eval Empire, as I call my former employer, was from a day when the Amazing Dr. Z and TODS drove two white vans full of students to... I just went blank... another college a few hours away... to hear Li-Young Lee read his poetry.

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

You were along for that?? I was in Dr. Z's van! It was Penn State Nowheresville Campus, where they hang random stag heads in the classroom buildings like it's a hunting lodge or something. That was the semester we read The City in Which I Love You in Dr. Z's class, and we all loved it so much. I forgot to bring my copy of the book to get it signed, so I ended up buying Rose that night and getting it signed instead--and I fell in love with that book too, so it was a good purchase. I had completely forgotten that there was another van with us!

[amedia.livejournal.com]

I wasn't along, but I remembered that TODS went along. I asked him about it and he said actually there was just one van but he and Jeannie took turns driving. Nowheresville was called DuBois, I think he said (pronounced like it's spelled, not like in French). L-YL eventually came to SU itself as part of the writer's program.

Speaking of which, a lovely coincidence - Melanie Ray Thon, the author of Iona Moon, who came to SU for the writer's program, came to our current institution to give a seminar to the writing students and a public reading. We went and saw her (we try to go to all the creative writing events if we can) and it was pretty nifty to see her again! I hated Iona Moon, to be honest, but I loved the new piece she read, and I thought she was very gracious. We didn't expect her to remember us, and I don't think she did, but she seemed very pleased that *we* remembered *her*.