I Ask My Mother to Sing

In Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee (2015), Lee says that writing poems assists him with his memories. As his memories often bewilder him, Lee turns to poetry to help him confront his recollections. In “I Ask My Mother to Sing,” Lee addresses his complex idea of memory. He acknowledges that he has no direct memory of Peking or the Summer Palace, yet he writes about the picnickers trying to avoid the rain, and the waterlilies, as if they were his memories. The specificity of the waterlilies in the rain makes it appear as if Lee had seen this with his own two eyes. They are not a memory proper but something that he imagines remembering due to the singing.

Aside from Lee’s memories, there are the memories of his mom and grandma. In Breaking the Alabaster Jar, Lee states that his mom came from a royal family. Her grandpa became the first president of the People’s Republic of China. While Lee doesn’t have personal memories of growing up in China, his mom and his grandma do. Although their memories of China aren’t clear, their tears suggest that their singing has produced emotional and fraught recollections of their homeland.