I Ask My Mother to Sing

 Understanding & Analysis

 Application & Wild Association

1. This poem presents some family members together, sharing their sense of loss and dislocation from their past.
   After looking at the suggested websites below about the poet's family history, discuss how knowledge of Lee's family background makes this poem even more meaningful.  ( Lee's parents left China because of the political turmoil there and then began a life on the run that eventually ended with the family living in the United States.)
2. In what ways are the speaker of this poem and his family like the picnickers?
3. Are there any similarities between the speaker's family and the rain-filled waterlilies?
4. ( literary techniques: Lyrics)
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     Where do we feel the speaker's attitude toward his mother and grandmother's singing? In other words, how do we catch the tone of this poem--from the ideas and the rhythm of the poem?
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     Considering the oversea Chinese, the second-generation Chinese immigrants or even just the youngsters today that ou know, do you think Lee's attitude towards his mother and grandmother special?

1. Most families have rituals or stories that they perform together to help them know and remember their past experiences, including experiences that happened even before some of the family members were born. What stories, songs, rituals does your family do to memorialize your past? What is the family in the poem doing to help them remember their past? Why are the mother and grandmother crying?
2. Can you guess which song the women in the poem sing?  Does it matter if we know it or not?
3. In both this poem and "Musical Key" by Cowboy Junkies we have (grand)parents "singing," whose significance is understood by their son or daughter(the I-narrator).  Try to analyze the significance of each "singing."
4. Why do we put popular songs with poetry?  What has poetry to do with "singing"?

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE Poetry (I): Family Relationships

Ray's Introduction to Literature, Fall, 1998

Kate's Last Updated Nov. 3, 1998