But the book's greatest strength may be its openness to interpretation. This is a text that is "open" in the sense that it acknowledges so much more than the words with which it is written. But the constant noise is not an omen of music to come.”, San Francisco Poetry Center Book Award (1987), In Which These Are the 100 Greatest Novels, Alexis Coe on Why It Matters When Women Write History. Read More. My Life is composed of titled prose paragraphs, each built of disjunctive sentences that avoid coherence. 2 (2004): 1-25. Account & Lists Account Returns & Orders. May 1st 2002 Hello, Sign in. Hejinian is a master poet. When she was thirty-seven years old, Lyn Hejinian wrote My Life, one of the best-known works to emerge from the Language movement with which she is associated.As autobiography, it challenges most conventions of the genre. I liked her last 8 sections best, written 8 years after the original work, which contained a little more narrative. The text is allusive and often ambiguous. I felt like Lyn Hejinian got so close to something great. I can keep reading it over and over, each time with a different reading. Poet, essayist, and translator, she is also the author and coauthor of several books of poetry, most recently Tribunal (Omnidawn Publishing, 2019). From 1976 to 1984 she was editor of Tuumba Press, and from 1981 to 1999 she co-edited (with Barrett Watten) Poetics Journal. Lyn Hejinian is among the most prominent of contemporary American poets. from My Life: Reason looks for two, then arranges it from there. I really like Hejinian but this book is hampered by a comfortable middle-class sense of continuity that ughhh arghh I can't even finish it, she HAD HORSES, SHE HAD HORSES. It is also a hallmark of feminist experimental writing, establishing a new and distinct voice. Hejinian was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband, composer/musician Larry Ochs. Perhaps the way to approach it, at least right now, is through a simple list of pros and cons: I love the sheer imagistic and synesthetic beauty of the first sentence. Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. Her groundbreaking work contributed greatly to the community-centered, non … Lyn Hejinian is among the most prominent of contemporary American poets. By Lyn Hejinian. I had to read this book for a poetry class; at first it struck me as nonsensical and too unique for its own good. But poetic memoirs of childhood have been done so, so much better by people like Walter Benjamin and Nathalie Sarraute, and by aiming for the rubric of “poetry” rather than memoir, this means I'm going to be VERY persnickety about language (and not, for example, allow all caps, eep). A beautiful and poetic exploration of self, memory, process, and language... A truly unique autobiography in which each sentence stands as its own poem without detracting from the book as a whole. This is top class. 8vo, perfect bound in illustrated wraps. This is maybe my favorite book ever. The book arrived forty years into Hejinian's long and prolific career. Surrealist poetry is a new thing for me and I love the poetic images that set me in a new direction, but my thirst for narrative and vicarious exeperience goes unsatisfied and I'm left wanting more. Seller ID: 28404 Lyn Hejinian My Life Green Integer Books ‘Recognized today as one of the great works of contemporary American literature, My Life is at once poetic autobiography, personal narrative, a woman’s fiction, and an ongoing dialogue with the poet and her experience. Cart if you do like postmodernism, you'll fall in love. Welcome First published as a thirty-seven-part work, by Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop’s Burning Deck Press in 1980, Lyn Hejinian’s My Life has become firmly established in the postmodern canon. Hejinian's work explores how personal identity may be constructed by and through language. My Life. this little booklet is so brilliant that i feel the intense urge to underline everything...or place a remarkable indication dot on the ends of each beginning and end...as i do for only certain portions of other works i read. More Poems by Lyn Hejinian. Recognized today as one of the great works of contemporary American literature, My Life is at once poetic autobiography, personal narrative, a woman’s fiction, and... Free shipping over $10. Thought provoking, inspiring, and a resource of meditation. You spill the sugar when you lift the spoon. My Life is a book of poetry written by Lyn Hejinian and released in 2002. First published in 1980, and revised in 1987 and 2002, My Life is now firmly established in the postmodern canon. Lyn Hejinian was born in the San Francisco Bay Area on May 17, 1941. At this reading, Hejinian read a sequence of four sections, starting with the one "about" her fifth year of life (from 4-5 years old). Spine creased, though binding remains sturdy, some minor foxing else very good. ", © Academy of American Poets, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038. My Life (Green Integer Books, 39) by Lyn Hejinian. All that matters is what the artist committed. Hejinian has continued to update the book over time, allowing it to grow with her, and has released a further volume entitled My Life in the Nineties (Shark, 2003). Spahr Lyn Hejinian's My Life Both subjectivity and objectivity are outdated filling sta-tions. Lyn Hejinian is among the most prominent of contemporary American poets. Composed of forty-five sections, titled, each containing forty-five sentences, My Life is an experimental memoir poem. Wonderful choice of words, high musicality and great use of poetry. The rest are citations and footnotes. Poetry. W. S. Ikard. -Lyn Hejinian, My Life Despite the relentless challenging of the subject in twentieth-century theory, it is still a cliche that autobiography is the place where the conventions of representation are narrative, where Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. Many of the sentences appear as windows into a life, while others act as brief aphorisms on the making of the book itself. My Life [Lyn Hejinian] on Amazon.com. By Lyn Hejinian. Paperback, 9781931243339, 1931243336 Start by marking “My Life” as Want to Read: Error rating book. The consistent self-presentation begins at the structural level of My Life. The continuation of the project begun in Hejinian's best-selling MY LIFE—also available from SPD—MY LIFE IN THE NINETIES provides important glimpses into related works such as HAPPILY, THE BEGINNER, and SLOWLY. Born in 1941 in Oakland, California, where Gertrude Stein had grown up fifty years earlier, Lyn Hejinian is a poet, essaysist, translator, and publisher who currently lives and teaches in Berkeley, California. This Wesleyan edition includes the 45-part prose poem seq.... (read more) Lyn Hejinian's My Life blends genre and literary form to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct modern living in America. from Writing Is an Aid to Memory: 17. First edition of this landmark work of the Language tendency. As far. 'You should know that men like Benvenuto, unique in their profession, need not be subject to the law.' For me, it is exciting and intriguing and the perfect overlapping of prose poem and autobiography. 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