1.
We two sit on our bed, you
between my legs, your back to me, your head
slightly bowed, that I may brush and braid
your hair. My father
did this for my mother,
just as I do for you. One hand
holds the hem of you hair, the other
works the brush. Both hands climb
as the strokes grow
longer, until I use not only my wrists,
but my arms, then my shoulders, my whole body
rocking in a rower’s rhythm, a lover’s
even time, as the tangles are undone,
and brush and bare hand run the thick,
fluent length of your hair, whose wintry scent
comes, a faint, human musk.
2.
Last night the room was so cold
I dreamed we were in Pittsburgh again, where winter
persisted and we fell asleep in the last seat
of the 71 Negley, dark mornings going to work.
How I wish we didn’t hate those years
while we lived them.
Those were days of books,
days of silences stacked high
as the ceiling of that great, dim hall
where we studied. I remember
the thick, oak tabletops, how cool
they felt against my face
when I lay my head down and slept.
3.
How long your hair has grown.
Gradually, December.
4.
There will come a day
one of us will have to imagine this: you,
after your bath, crosslegged on the bed, sleepy, patient,
while I braid your hair.
5.
Here, what’s made, these braids, unmakes
itself in time, and must be made
again, within and against
time. So I braid
your hair each day.
My fingers gather, measure hair,
hook, pull and twist hair and hair.
Deft, quick, they plait,
weave, articulate lock and lock, to make
and make these braids, which point
the direction of my going, of all our continuous going.
And though what’s made does not abide,
my making is steadfast, and, besides, there is a making
of which this making-in-time is just a part,
a making which abides
beyond the hands which rise in the combing,
the hands which fall in the braiding,
trailing hair in each stage of its unbraiding.
6.
Love, how the hours accumulate. Uncountable.
The trees grow tall, some people walk away
and diminish forever.
The damp pewter days slip around without warning
and we cross over one year and one year.
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Li-Young Lee uses images of hair in many of his poems. He often uses the movement of hair as a metaphor for the passage of time. It seems like in this poem, he is trying to relate to the reader the memories and feelings that are invoked when he braids his wife’s (assuming) hair. He is very perceptive to patterns and rituals, such as in his poem “I Ask My Mother to Sing” where he notices the way his mother always grooms her hair. In “Braiding”, he describes his own ritual that he performs, and how it is a continuation of a memory of his parents. He seems to associate particular memories with certain patterns or objects. Alot of times, he likes to describe his father by means of different flora (vegetables, fruits, trees etc.). I find this association very fascinating as it is almost like Lee is trying to instill these symbols with the spirit of his past relatives. As with his other poems, I enjoy the imagery he employs in “Braiding”, particularly associated to specific nostalgic experiences. For instance, he says “I remember the thick, oak tabletops, how cool they felt against my face when I lay my head down and slept.” This reminds me of another of his poems, “Eating Alone”, where he says “By the cellar door, I wash the onions, then drink from the icy metal spigot,” yet another example of nostalgic sensory experience. He seems to like cold, dark, quiet, or liquid memories, as they appear most frequently in his works. He speaks of “a rotten pear. In it, a hornet spun crazily, glazed in slow, glistening juice.” Sometimes he also breaks his pattern and writes something like “Nocturne”, which is suffused with sharp, rusty, unpleasant imagery, grating and out of place compared to winter vegetables or a succulent pear, much as the sound described in the poem seems out of place to LYL in the night. In many ways it seems that LYL uses his poetry to record his specific physical experiences and memories. I enjoy experiencing a part of his memories, as in many instances they closely relate to my own. In particular, the icy metal spigot invokes memories that I’ve associated with that image. Others don’t seem to appreciate these memories, as I’ve discovered below.
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Source
“LYL is a modern day martyr- someone, not unlike a Mary Oliver, to whom the PC Elitist term of spiritual is attached oh-so-delicately to- as if he is a modern monk. Being spiritual also entails being called lyrical & musical, whether or not the poems plod. MO’s best poems have music. LYL’s are merely distorted prose.”“This kind of pathetic bathos should be weeded out in any Day 1 of any even shady workshop rip-off class. That this kind of writing finds publishers, & gets lauded is only more proof of the utter dumbing down of culture- HUMAN CULTURE! Publishers have been thoroughly Oprahfied! About the only positive thing that 1 can say about this stock workshop themed piece of doggerel (the titular poem), which is as wholly generic as any poem I’ve yet essayed in TOP, is that- thankfully- LYL showed enough compassion to not cast it as a villanelle!”
Not only do we have here a critic, but a particularly snide, jaded one at that. His excessively grandiloquent style is almost nauseatingly fake aswell. Dan Schneider takes on the task of reviewing Li-Young Lee and “Braiding” with gusto.
“Stanza 1 has nothing new nor poetic in it- but the rewrite (below) says far more with far less. In it we start in media res, get all the attendant baggage that the original feels a need to detail, & it has music. Stanza 2, originally, is rote, trite, & detailed description meant to make the poem’s percipient ‘real’ & individuated. But characters become real by their actions, & how they are described. The rewrite gets to the center in haikuvian fashion. Stanza 3 can even be shortened. With just the rewritten title & line 1 of Stanza 1 of the rewrite we have invoked all the hair brushing & braiding workshop clichés. The 2 word stanza 3 can be seen as the query at the poem’s axle, of a moment of appreciation of the brushed’s mane. Stanza 4, originally, feels a need to remind you this is about hair & braiding. The rewrite focuses in on what the speaker finds important. This ‘builds’ character in & of its own ungilded statement. Stanza 5- an abomination of tautology, while the rewrite is more mysterious, lauds the creationary impulse, & leaves blanks to be filled in. In short, it intrigues where the original bores. Stanza 6 ends the poem with a whimper- more braiding, but the braiding is not just of hair- see, the poet was being deep & symbolic. The rewrite leaves us wanting to reread & connect some dots. Read it fully:Braiding
1.
Undone, brush and bare hand run the thick,
fluent length, whose wintry scent comes musk.
2.
The thick, oak tabletops- how cool
they felt against my face.
3.
How long.
4.
After your bath, crosslegged on the bed, sleepy, patient.
5.
Making, which abides the hands
rises in the combing, fall
in each stage of it.
6.
Damp pewter days slip around without warning.”
It appears that Dan is frustrated by the “verbose” style of LYL’s poetry. However, the notion that you can rewrite a poem to remove everything but the essential details is borderline absurd. Aside from William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound, almost every poet uses more description than is needed. In fact, if we’re going to be reducing things to their essential meaning, I can describe “Romeo and Juliet” in two words: “unrequited love”. There, I’ve reproduced one of Shakespeare’s most famous works with only the essential details, award please? Dan clearly misses the meaning and purpose of art and poetry. It’s not necessarily about saying exactly what you mean in specific, painstakingly rhymed verses. Like Li-Young Lee says, “The Real medium in architecture is the not materiality, it’s space, it’s immateriality.” The spaces are just as important as the words of a poem. Impatiently reading a poem like a book, expecting to find overt meaning certainly would lead to a conclusion like “This kind of pathetic bathos should be weeded out in any Day 1 of any even shady workshop rip-off class.” One must consider the spacing and structure of the poem that LYL presents; not just the meaning of the words, but also the way they bring about particular associations. Arguing about the triteness of themes and styles of poetry is frustratingly pointless as it ALL has been done before. Why is Father-Son relationship and “reconciliation” off limits? The only new direction to go is towards the bizarre, yet this is seen by some (Dan) as pointless dribble. Quite honestly there’s nothing you can do about a jaded critic. They’re too far gone to realize the inflexability of their impossible standards. I’m not saying that everyone has to like LYL’s style of poetry, but rather that Dan’s reasons for disliking it are invalid and insufficient. Some people obviously can’t stand this kind of poetry. In all, it comes down to a matter of opinion, much like the controversy of modern art.
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