Li-Young Lee

Poet Li-Young Lee's latest book is The Undressing. From the transcript of his interview with NPR's Sarah McCammon:

MCCAMMON: The inside jacket of this book, "The Undressing," says that this collection of poems, quote, "attempts to uncover things hidden since the dawn of the world." That sounds like a big undertaking. What do you mean by that?

LEE: Yeah (laughter). I was kind of shocked that I said that. I guess, you know, when one writes poetry, you enter into a relationship with the logos.

MCCAMMON: That's Greek for word, right?

LEE: Yes, it's the Greek for word. And when we write poems, we enter into a relationship - a deep relationship - with the logos, the word and with the dynamism of opposites, you know, meaning and nonsense, chaos and order and form and void. So it seems to me that when we write poems, we are trying to access or understand those deep laws. So that's what I meant, I guess.

MCCAMMON: Some of your poems seem to express almost a frustration, though, with poetry. For example, there's a section in your book where the speaker appears to be a woman. She's referred to as she. And she says, you call yourself a poet. You tame high-finisher of paltry blots. You publish doubt and call it knowledge. You destroy the wisdom of ages to gratify your envy. You murder benevolence and virtue with condescension. You pretend to poetry and destroy imagination.

Do you ever feel that way about your own writing?

LEE: Oh, that's...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue