Bruce Covey presents Lyn Hejinian

To tell the truth, Dear Reader, I feel a little silly attempting to introduce Lyn Hejinian to you!  Is she not the editor of her very own Best American Poetry annual collection (2004, my favorite of all!)?  Author or co-author of roughly three dozen books and chapbooks of poetry and essays?  Groundbreaking editor of Tuumba Press and now, Atelos?  Noted translator from Russian, literary theorist, and Berkeley Professor? Furthermore, I’ve been fretting about writing this little paragraph all week, thinking I’ll have nothing unique or groundbreaking to say (silly too to fret, considering how generous of a person Hejinian is, as evidenced by her avid support of emerging poets and small journals and presses like Coconut!  All I’ve come up with, partially inspired by the facebook-like biographical tone of the poem below, are a memory, an opinionated claim, and a little known detail.  The memory:  When she visited Atlanta, Lyn & I ate Thai food and talked about children and the process of adoption, Bush administration politics, and jazz.  A claim:  I believe Lyn Hejinian’s My Life is the most influential single volume of poetry by a living American author.  (Hey, to make this feature more interactive, would you, Reader, like to comment on whether you agree?)  A little known detail:  For three years, unbeknownst for much of that time to Lyn herself, there was a blog devoted to reproducing a line from My Life every day.  One of the things I admire most about her work is the way it changes from book to book—My Life is incredible, yes, but so is Oxota, Happily, A Border Comedy, all of her books, and her recent work (see Coconut 5). Oh, and finally, for a collective autobiography of 70s LangPo, including Lyn Hejinian, check out the Grand Piano series, just a click away.

11th Dream of July

Her waking state can be termed the true yellow cling peach of romance
In a word, anatomy
She will return as a harmless subject envied by none
Neighborhood: abandoned former battlefield
Social structure: artsy/inefficacious
Favorite leisure pastime: whining/watching rented movies
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings
They have been put in alphabetical order
Like a piece of ice on a hot stove
If it is a wild tune
I threw away punctuation
Never reject anything. Nothing has been proved
Back into the city to find that lost serenity
I woke from it. Nothing anywhere lacked definition

-- Lyn Hejinian

Comments

[Michelle]

Bruce, I haven't read 'My Life' and have immediately added it to my list of books to buy.

Thank you.

[Nick Courtright]

I think My Life is certainly a fine contestant for most influential, and is definitely in the top 5, but when all's said and done I'd have to go with Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror--the Ashberian approach has cut a pretty broad swath across poetry, influencing not just digressive postmodernists, but also Neo-Formalists, the non-pigeonholed, and the general public.

[Catherine Daly]

my life is not, I would argue, influential poetry so much as oft taught for formal reasons poetryfictionmemoir

self portrait is not influential in the same way, mostly because "the poetry of John Ashbery" is more influential than that particular book -- what about Three Poems or Tennis Court Oath

unfortunately, I think something like the dead and the living, or the country between us, has broader influence

and my votes: Coney Island of the Mind, by Lawrence Frelinghetti, or Riprap, by Gary Snyder

[Stacey]

While I'm an admirer of Hejinian, I have to say that my vote for most influential goes to Elizabeth Bishop's Collected.

[steven]

Oh I do LOVE Hejinian! For me Cummings 1X1, Ferlinghetti's Coney Island of the Mind, and Ashbery's Three Poems have been my first and steady love affairs.

[Jessy Randall]

I immediately thought of A Coney Island of the Mind, but then saw that we're supposed to choose a living poet. (I learned in library school in 1993 that Coney Island was the best-selling poetry book of all-time -- I bet that's still true.) But for most influential, I'm going to say Billy Collins, maybe The Art of Drowning? I'd like to say Margaret Atwood or Nikki Giovanni, but those are simply poets I love, not necessarily the most influential.

[jeff t johnson]

i second self-portrait. i clicked over here to nominate it. i see ashbery all over the american poetry i most enjoy, which is to say i think he's (mostly) a good influence. the high profile of triple-crowned self-portrait, as well as its congenial and playful, yet guarded tone, makes it one of his most generous (in terms of positive influence) books. tennis court oaths is also influential, but it has encouraged a less coherent, less engaging poetry from its disciples. [side note: anyone who enjoys self-portrait will probably also like houseboat days, which is at least as terrific as the former.]