I have to admit, I struggled with “Persimmons” when I first read it. I’m not sure that I completely got it after class discussion. There is just something about the poem (I’m not entirely sure what) that I just didn’t like. I’m not saying it was a bad poem, but there is something that doesn’t strike me as others have.
It wasn’t until class that I even put some of the basic concepts together. I liked how two very different cultures were approached by Li-Young Lee. I thought the use of Mrs. Walker’s class was brilliant. It applied the situation to a real life circumstance. I can only imagine how many times a teacher, or anyone for that matter, thinks they have knowledge over something when in fact, they don’t. Mrs. Walker’s mistake didn’t necessarily show her as incompetent, but it did show her as having a cultural flaw.
The notion of loss of language intrigued me. I can’t imagine being submersed in another culture with another language. English is hard enough for native speakers; it must be unbearable for those who don’t have it as their first language.
I think this poem hit some great points. It was like some of the others that we have encountered in the sense that it addressed cultural and family history. Where a person comes from and the family they grow up in shape what kind of person they become.
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