Poetry Breaks: Li-Young Lee Reads "I Ask My Mother to Sing"

The Poetry Breaks series is a series of videos filmed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by creator Leita Luchetti, who co-produced the series with the WGBH New Television Workshops. Poetry Breaks features short videos of internationally renowned poets reading their work, reading the work of other poets, and discussing their takes on poetry in a variety of locations. The Academy of American Poets has partnered with Luchetti to present these videos once again.

[@tiranghevondyan]

*She begins, and by grandmother joins here.*
*Mother and daughter sing like young girls.*
*If my father were alive, he would play his accordion and sway like a boat.*
*I've never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,*
*nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch*
*the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake,*
*the picknikers running away in the grass.*
*But i love to hair it sung;*
*how the waterlilies fill with rain untail*
*they overturn, spilling water into water.*
*then rock back, and fill with more.*
*Both women have begun to cry.*
*But neither stops her song.*

[@rubygrove3338]

Closed my eyes and had an image that was beautiful.

[@pederengebretson6826]

Hey, sweet poem. Love the lilies.

[@oni8640]

Beautiful

[@user-om9eg1rj8v]

nice