“Eating Together” is a lyric poem from the debut collection Rose (1986) by Li-Young Lee. Like many of the other poems from this collection, “Eating Together” is autobiographical, featuring memories of Lee’s mother, father, and siblings.

In “Eating Together,” Lee provides a detailed, straightforward description of a family lunch, touching on themes like the unifying power of food, the authority of parents, and the presence of death. While the dishes and their preparation mark the family as being of Chinese background, Lee is ambivalent about being labeled a Chinese American poet. Lee’s parents were born and raised in China, but Lee doesn’t want people to reduce him to an ethnic or racial identity. Moreover, although his poetry is discernibly personal, Lee doesn’t identify as a confessional poet—“Eating Together” is thus not about biographical disclosure, but instead an example of Lee’s commitment to a depersonalized voice and poems that emphasize precise language and clear images.

Poet Biography

Lee was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1957 to parents who had been born and raised in China. Lee’s mother Jia Ying came from a powerful political family; her grandfather Yuan Shikai (Lee’s great-grandfather) had been the first president of the Republic of China in 1913. Lee’s father came from a less illustrious family: His paternal grandfather “was a gangster and an entrepreneur, my parent’s marriage was very frowned upon in China” (Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee. Earl G. Ingersoll, ed. BOA Editions, 2006, p. 30). Lee’s father Lee Kuo Yuan became a prominent doctor who treated Mao Zedong, the leader of communist China from 1949 to 1976. Alienated by communism, Lee’s parents moved to Indonesia, where his father helped found Gamaliel University; however, soon an increase in anti-Chinese racism made Lee’s a target. Authorities intended to place the family in a prison colony, but they escaped and came to the United States.

In the US, the family lived in Chicago, Illinois, and in Pennsylvania; Lee’s father became a Christian preacher. Lee’s parents encouraged artistic expression, and his father often played the accordion while Lee and his siblings sang and painted. At the University of Pittsburgh, Lee began writing poems, taking classes taught by the American poet Gerald Stern. In 1986, Lee published his first collection of poems, Rose, and Stern penned the introduction. The book features “Eating Together” and other poems that present memories of his family in a dispassionate, impartial tone. The book won New York University’s Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award. Lee has published several other award-winning collections, including The City in Which I Love You (1990) and Book of My Nights (2001). Lee lives in Chicago, and he has a wife and two sons.

Poem text

Lee, Li-Young. “Eating Together.” 1986. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The poem’s unnamed speaker—which readers can assume to be Lee himself—describes the preparation of a lunch for their family: steamed trout seasoned with ginger, sesame oil, green oil, and also rice. Neither the speaker, nor his brothers or sister, will get to eat the head of the trout—the best part of the fish. Rather, the speaker anticipates that it will go to their mother, who will expertly hold it in her fingers the way the speaker’s father once did. The speaker’s father died several weeks ago. The speaker compares his father’s death to lying down to sleep, and to a snowy road where he is the only traveler but does not feel alone.