Studies in the Literary Imagination, March 22nd, 2004
What is it in me would devour this world to utter it? ... I would eat it all to utter it ...
I would devour this race to sing it ... I would eat Emerson, his transparent soul, his soporific transcendence.
--Li-Young Lee, "The Cleaving" (83)
In one of his longest and best-known poems, "The Cleaving," Li-Young Lee announces his desire to devour Ralph Waldo Emerson like a steamed fish in a Chinese meal. The reader forgives this breach of table etiquette because, as Lee informs us, Emerson said the whole Chinese race was ugly--he deserves to be eaten. But Lee's poem is more sophisticated and ...
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