Lyn HejinianMy Life and My Life in the Nineties (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

rather closed, by second reading some doors open unto a very intelligent world

For the life of me, I cannot remember why I bought this book. No doubt I read a favorable review somewhere, and in a moment of weakness I succumbed to it.No doubt some people will like this because it "says what the Nineties were like." Baudelaire also said this (also in a prose poem format) but he had something to say, and said it well.One reviewer (on the back cover) says "This text is a kind of super-collider, a site for high-energy linguistic experimentation." Maybe so, but it is not poetry.

Poetry that matters.

This poet, Lyn Hejinian, is perhaps as great if not greater than Robert Hass or Louise Gluck. She is a literary gymnast. I felt the words and references, syntax and grammar, tumble in my mind like clouds. She moves in and out, but then don't we also as we drift?She talks about desire or need, for example, and a metaphor such as water is by her associated with thirst, then she talks about a woman laying in bed, perhaps it is she, who pretends to be a baby or wounded. She is both sad and thirsty. There is a "fellow in the dark" and he would be good, not with a harmonica, per se, but a good person. He was talking about oil paint, the body of pigments, and the ground with its distortions as they actually are, as you would see them. This is her portrait-bowl.Things seem to relate, a portrait-bowl comes after a man talking about paints and the ground with distortions and the first thing is to make an ashtray. It is about the past.Things seem disconnected. But the effect is to lock in a mood with a series of profundities, little thoughts, memories emblematic of beauty in space-time. She points, as if directing us to cathartic moments.Here is a sample of what she does:"Sadness and thirst, and hence sadness and water, have ever since been associated in my imagination. She lay in bed pretending to be a baby or a wounded soldier. The fellow in the dark would be the good guy with a harmonica. He was talking about oil paints, the body of the pigments, and the ground, with its distortions as they're actual, really seen."She rhymes and splits, describing the nuances of moments that lead to other moments.Ron Silliman of the San Francisco Review of Books got it correct when he said, "Rich textual surfaces" as did Hank Lazer of Archive Newsletter, who said, "collision of various sentences and subjects... cubist or collagist."I cannot recommend this book more highly. I believe she has taken poetry to a new level of awareness.Looking back at this, I question my use of the word relevance because she it relevant. She is referential, but on a level that is both suggestive and actual, but it seems to linger on the process of words and how they delight the mind. It is a kind of poetry that is impressionistic, as say a water lillie painting is reflective of water lilies on a lake. It is the impression of the water lilies that is at stake in her poetry. It is about the poet looking around and finding words that equate to the emotional state she is in as well as trusting that the words are relevant. Poetry is always about listening. No poet can claim to own what comes from him/her, because one moment there is nothing and the next a thought that feels profound. A poet is someone who has chosen to listen and record, to synthesize, and to surmise with what emotional intelligence and linguistic skill that has been provided and worked on, respectively. But, again, there is only silence before the word. If we get it right the first time, there is little editing. When the ego gets involved, the spigot is turned off.She is remembering and in so doing little thoughts/clarifications intercede, like hindsight is 20/20."The constant trembling in their muscles causing the girls behind me (for I always went in front, and in fact was racing always away from the girls, urgent with alienation and anxious to be alone, since I hated the camp and was persistently homesick) to giggle." p. 21Her use of the phrase "drop sail" (p. 21) related to the initial thought, which is of the "Distant bay of blue..." (p. 20) It is how when we tell a story, we come back to the things about the story that we remember. Words or the connotations of words are triggered. The theme is "What memory is not a gripping thought." She is difficult perhaps, but she is a genius.Perhaps this is what happens when you only read things once, or experience life as an observer, you move about the impressions, you don't study them, pay much attention more than that. You find their souls and then move on. Such as with:"There are places in it that I never revisited." Or "Imitating something to say," (p. 21) since sometimes there are no words and people require them.

There are moments of greatness in both these poems, but you have to dig them out. My honest feeling is that some good editing could have made these poems better. On the other hand, to make a musical analogy a la Hejinian, some of the best musical moments come out of improvisation.

This book was used for an English Lit course at UofT. Rather tame.

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