Syntactical Structure Of Li-Lee's Before The Big Books

The second stanza syntactical structure illustrates complexity of childhood experiences between a child and their parents. The placement of ‘father’s” before the “Big Books” suggests that the father owned the big books because their is a possessive apostrophe. The physical placement of words shows the interdependent nature of the books in relation to the father within the phrase of the stanza. This shows that the existence of the book and the pages depends on the father. The sequence described in the first line however is not in sequential order, thus not having order can symbolize Li -Young Lee’s state of mind is disorganized without his father. Furthermore there is no punctuation in the passage, and their is no transition between the first
The second line of the text refers to flowers being picked during the day. The action of taking flowers out of their roots has a figurative connotation, because their is a separation between the flower and it’s roots, but their is no need to take out the flowers, it's an action without a purpose. Flower picking can serve as allusion to the life of Li Young-Lee because as he waits and time passes, he is left with no parental roots to guide him, and each moment that passes is each moment the flower is being taken out of the ground. Furthermore the syntactical absence of commas allow the free verse structure of the poem to be illustrated because although the words are structured in the poem, there is no structure for how the poem can be interpreted. So the poem can be a reference to childhood, or a reference to a loss of time. In this case, the stanza refers to Lee touching and reflecting upon his father's past which are apart of the book, and although this is true he is also losing time by reflecting and by picking the flowers. Although this all takes place in the past the present implications are that time is lost in Lee’s childhood because he spends time reflecting on the