Problematize -Pillow.

“There's nothing that won't fit under it:
fountains clogged with mud and leaves,
the houses of my childhood.”

This line from the poem “Pillow” troubles me because I cannot figure out what the deeper meaning behind it is.  I’m not the best at deciphering poetry to begin with, so when I read even the slightest abstract poem, I usually don’t understand it at all.  I didn’t even realize until we discussed the poem in class that it talks about when you try to fall asleep, but your mind races like crazy and it just seems impossible to do so –“Voices in the trees, the missing pages of the sea. Everything but sleep.”

We learned a bit about Li-Young Lee in class on Tuesday, and it was interesting to see all of the correlations between his past and his writing.  I wonder if “fountains clogged with mud and leaves” could represent steadiness throughout his life.  His biography stated that as a child, he moved around often and his father seemed to have many professions.  Maybe the fountain’s steady stream represents his life and the mud and leaves represent the trials or busyness of his childhood. Or maybe the fountain represents the presence of his father throughout Lee’s childhood.  His biography also stated that his father spent two years in jail because of political reasons.  The “mud and leaves” could represent Lee’s father’s time spent in jail and how that affected the steady presence of a father figure in Lee’s childhood. 

I know for sure if my father had to spend two years in jail for political reasons during my childhood, it would affect my life permanently.  I understand what it means to have faith now, as a 21 year old, but as a child I really didn’t understand what it meant to have faith.  I didn’t understand that all things work together for those that love God and are called according to His purpose.  I would definitely view the absence of my father as a bunch of mud and leaves obstructing the steady flow of the fountain of my youth.  It’s difficult to understand why bad/sad things happen when we’re children.  I believe this “mud and leaves” reference in Lee’s poem has a much deeper meaning than the reader would notice at first glance.  I think Lee put that line in this poem purposefully, and the line is meant to leave some interpretation up to the reader.