Persimmons (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Li-Young Lee
- First Published: 1981
- Type of Work: Narrative
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, Children, Schools or school life, Immigration or emigration, Edible plants, Asian Americans, China or Chinese people, Chinese Americans, Students or student life, Fruit
The Poem
“Persimmons” consists of eighty-eight lines of free verse. The speaker is clearly Li-Young Lee himself, who immigrated to the United States from China as a small boy. The poem begins with Lee in trouble with his sixth-grade teacher because he cannot hear the difference between the words “persimmon” and “precision.” This scene is the first of several episodes Lee recalls in “Persimmons,” each of which involves a verbal ambiguity, misconception, or blunder of some sort. In the course of the poem these encounters involve Lee and four other people: Mrs....
[The entire page is 1519 words long]
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