Sunday, January 22, 2016,
In this turbulent election time poet Jim Moreno offers a poetry workshop which is grounded in the quiet intimacy of American poet Li Young Lee. Lee, born of Chinese parents in Jakarta, Indonesia in 1954, had a difficult, troubled childhood including watching his father beaten in front of him by soldiers of Indonesian president Sukarno who was amplifying anti-Chinese sentiment throughout that land. His father was incarcerated for 19 months, half that time in a leper colony, and he knew no life other than that of a refugee until the family moved to the United States in 1964.
Lee attended the Universities of Pittsburgh and Arizona, and the State University of New York at Brockport. He has taught at several universities, including Northwestern and the University of Iowa. This is an amazing literary path considering he spoke no English when the family moved to the United States. He has learned three languages in his lifetime and this might explain the astounding subtle and simple power of his poetry. Three languages are three gifts in perspective, vocabulary, and choice.
Moreno has been using Li Young Lee’s poetry as the Poet In Residence of the Juvenile Court and Community Schools, a Teaching Artist with Arts 4 Learning, and San Diego Writers Ink.
Moreno comments :“I’ve noticed the youth responding to Lee’s poetry with amazing clarity and depth in their writing. He speaks to something human in them that transcends culture and appeals to the human heart.”
Lee’s first mentor, Gerald Stern stated: “Lee’s work is characterized by a willingness to let the sublime enter his field of concentration and take over, a devotion to language, a belief in holiness.”
The Poetry Archive stated: “(Lee’s) poetry is also a highly sensuous voice that uses the encounter with the physical world as a gateway to profound meditations in loss and love. His skillful use of repetition and silence organize his poems in lieu of the conventional form.”
Join Jim Moreno for this January poetry workshop which blends the original forms of Li Young Lee with the voices of Dorianne Laux, Joy Harjo, Marge Piercy, William Stafford, Gerald Stern, and others to provide beginning and seasoned poets with prompts for writing original poetry in a container of respect and encouragement.
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The Poetry of Li Young Lee Enrollment: $60.00