Knitting with persimmons
“Persimmons” by Li-Young Lee
I don’t have the credentials to talk about this poem. The moments of interculturality and the brilliant imagery of the persimmon meld together a thought-provoking piece about love, family, language, oppression, and the interplay of cultures.
That aside, I read this poem just as I successfully finished my first-ever knitting project. I’m a young person, but I love the idea of knitting because it allows me to create something concrete and final when I live in a world constantly surrounded by the virtual and the abstract.
“My mother said every persimmon has a sun inside, something golden, glowing, warm as my face.”
Finishing the rolled up yarn-tie you see in the photo and tying it around my neck for the first time I felt like I was glowing, that the world was concrete and warm and full of physical possibility.
The love of persimmons, their specificity, and the underlying themes they touched really made me think about the act of knitting the tie — how much it meant to me while being so simple, and not a masterpiece at all. While my tie doesn’t deal with separate cultures, it feels incredibly loaded with meaning and emotion.
Read the full poem here:
