Poet Li-Young Lee to Perform Reading on May 8

Reading will be held in Kemper Auditorium at 7 p.m.

April 22, 2009 - Phillips Academy is pleased to present acclaimed poet and writer Li-Young Lee on Friday, May 8, at 7 p.m. in Kemper Auditorium, located in the Elson Art Center on Chapel Avenue in Andover. Lee will read from his latest collection of poems “Behind My Eyes.” After the reading, there will be a book-signing reception with light refreshments. The Andover Bookstore will be on hand with copies of Lee’s books for purchase. The reading and book-signing reception is free and open to the public.

“Behind My Eyes,” (2008) has been widely lauded by critics, including the Christian Science Monitor, which observed that the work “swings—from eloquent to intellectual, piercing to plainspoken— sometimes in just a few stanzas.” His other books include “Book of My Nights” (2001), “The City in Which I Love You” (1991), “Rose” (1986), and a collection of 12 interviews with Lee at various stages of his artistic development called “Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee” (2006).

His 1995 memoir, “The Winged Seed: A Remembrance,” tells the story of his family’s descent from prominent patriots to refugees. Lee’s father, the personal physician to Mao Zedong and one of the founders of Indonesia’s Gamaliel University, fled Jakarta with his family in 1959 to escape discriminatory laws enacted against Chinese Indonesians and nationals living in the country at the time. Two-year-old Lee spent the next five years with his family on the run in Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan, before settling in the United States.

Among his many awards, Lee has received the prestigious William Carlos Williams Award, the Lamont Prize, a Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, the I.B. Lavan Award, the Lannan Literary Award, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award, three Pushcart Prizes, and a Whiting Writer’s Award

Lee lives in Chicago with his wife, Donna, and their two sons.

The Sandra Isham Vreeland Fund and the Phillips Academy English Department are cosponsoring Li-Young Lee’s visit. The Sandra Isham Vreeland Fund has sponsored visits to the Academy by a number of prominent poets in recent years, including Billy Collins, Robert Hass, Mary Karr, Paul Muldoon, and, last year, Robert Pinsky.