Saturday, January 18, 2014

What is the theme in Li-Young Lee's poem, "Persimmons," and what elements support that theme?

From the verbal confusion that is mentioned in the first
stanza as the youthful poet confuses precision and persimmon, the theme of communication
and how we communicate is established. Clearly, for a poet, words are vitally important
in this process of communicatino, but the poet himself learned through this childhood
experience that words can be very ambiguous and imprecise, particularly when they are
not accompanied by love. Mrs. Walker, with her lack of patience and her quick judgement,
shows how words can actually be used to communicate more confusion than clarity, which
is highlighted when Mrs. Walker refers to a "Chinese apple" rather than a persimmon, yet
remains unaware that it is not ripe.


Yet with love, words
can be used to communicate effectively, as is conveyed through the experience when the
speaker makes love to his wife in the yard. Even though he has forgotten some Chinese
words, this is unimportant, because he remebers to tell her "she is as beautiful as the
moon." In an environment of love and respect (that stands out in contrast to Mrs. Walker
and her relationship with the child that the poet once was), such imprecision of
language becomes unimportant. Communication is shown to be made perfect through love,
and miscommunication the obvious product of love's absence. As the poem ends with the
experience of the poet's blind father, who can still paint persimmons, even if he can't
see them, persimmons seem to stand for communicated experiences that never leave
us:



Some
things never leave a person:


scent of the har of one you
love,


the texture of
persimmons,


in your palm, the ripe
weight.



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