Eating Together

The poem’s compact form links it to the Imagist movement; the poem creates a snapshot of a moment in time rendered through clear, non-figurative description.

The lines vary in length from seven syllables (Line 9) to 13 syllables (Line 12), but neither length is remarkable nor stands out. Lee surrounds Line 12 with other long lines, and he places Line 8 within shorter lines, giving the poem a deliberate, organized appearance. The tidiness relates to the food and the uncontested hierarchical dynamics of the family. The speaker specifies exactly the amount of green onion—“two sprigs” (Line 3)—and there is no question that the mother will lead the lunch and get to eat the fish head.

The poem is in free verse, so there’s no explicit rhyme scheme or meter. While there’s no overt rhyme scheme, Lee brings melody to the poem with internal near-rhymes and assonance—parts of words recapitulate sounds or syllables creating echoes. For example, in Line 2, “slivers” and “ginger” rely on the same short “i” sound; “green” and “sesame” in Line 3 contain the same long “e” that in Line 6 occurs in “sweetest” and “meat.