Persimmons

When Li-Young Lee wrote and published “Persimmons,” there was no identifiable tradition of Asian poetry in English. Though many modernist poets, such as Ezra Pound, drew on traditional Chinese poetry’s imagistic qualities to move Western poetry in new directions, it was not until the first major influx of Asian immigration into the United States in the 1960s that Asian voices began to write using English as their primary language. Lee moved to the United States in 1964, and he was among the first widely published Asian American poets.

Lee’s influences are wide ranging: European Romanticism, a movement from the early 19th century that placed emphasis on emotional intensity; on American confessional poetry, a style that emerged in the 1950s promoting the value of writing about the deeply personal, blurring the line between poetic speaker and author; and symbols and themes from traditional Chinese poetry—particularly that from the Tang Dynasty (618–907), which commonly used themes of isolation and displacement. The Romantic influence is best seen in Lee’s emphasis on the natural world and its awe-inspiring beauty; for example, in the way he describes persimmons in this poem as containing suns. Lee’s use of the first person and the poem’s assumed biographical content marks it as part of the confessional movement. Finally, his allusions to classical Chinese tradition are evident in his thematic and imagery content: In “Persimmons,” for example, the “moon” (Line 28) takes on its traditional Chinese role as supreme aesthetic object and the theme of isolation is prevalent.