Her experimental autobiography My Life, first published in 1980, is the purest example of this poetic project, and established her as one of the foremost members of the Language school of poetry. Hejinian's work explores how personal identity may be constructed by and through language. The text is allusive and often ambiguous. I felt like Lyn Hejinian got so close to something great. 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. Description: First edition. To see what your friends thought of this book. Hejinian was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband, composer/musician Larry Ochs. Her groundbreaking work contributed greatly to the community-centered, non … Poet, essayist, and translator, she is also the author and coauthor of several books of poetry, most recently Tribunal (Omnidawn Publishing, 2019). My Life (Sun & Moon Classics) by Lyn Hejinian. The lines of poetry do not occur in chronological order, but together form a "verbal tapestry" of Lyn Hejinian's life. 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 an ongoing dialogue with the poet and her experience. Her poem My Life has garnered accolades and fans inside and outside academia. Extract. 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 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. Chun, Sehjae. All that matters is what the artist committed. -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 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. 5.0 out of 5 stars My Life. A work of slow art, as well as one of the few collections of Language poetry that has aged well, An excellent “poetic autobiography,” told in lyrical, repetitious, elliptical prose, slowly passing through a life with baffling clarity, bamboozling starkness and confuddling honesty. The language wasn't bad, but I'm not so sure why other reviewers here are cumming in their athleisure wear about it. Her autobiographical poem My Life, a best-selling book of innovative American poetry, has garnered accolades and fans inside and outside academia.The Language of Inquiry is a comprehensive and wonderfully readable collection of her essays, and its publication promises to be an important event for American literary culture. One person found this helpful. Comment Report abuse. Hejinian is often regarded as an avant-garde, feminist, language poet; examining language that dictates and reinforces ideology through a fragmented form of pros. Hejinian avoids any semblance of narrative structure or … I felt like Lyn Hejinian got so close to something great. More Poems by Lyn Hejinian. By Lyn Hejinian. Spahr Lyn Hejinian's My Life Both subjectivity and objectivity are outdated filling sta-tions. ", © Academy of American Poets, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038. My Life is a book of poetry written by Lyn Hejinian and released in 2002. Start by marking “My Life” as Want to Read: Error rating book. It's difficult to make an evaluation of this book. First published in 1980, and revised in 1987 and 2002, My Life is now firmly established in the postmodern canon. Reading from My Life at San Francisco State University, 1979 Note: Each section of this work marks a year in the life of the poet. which you would be excused from not guessing at seeing the title. However, Hejinian keeps overall coherence at arm's length: she acknowledges that when writing any history it is "impossible to get close to the original, or to know 'what really happened.'" It defines identity by fragmentation, which characterizes the postmodern bent of Hejinian's fellow Language poets. By Lyn Hejinian. This is one of my favorite literary treats that I return to when I want perspective, when I want to be lifted out of the linear and escape into freewritten bliss. Lyn Hejinian was born in the San Francisco Bay Area on May 17, 1941. I liked her last 8 sections best, written 8 years after the original work, which contained a little more narrative. Her poem My Life has garnered accolades and fans inside and outside academia. Author: Hejinian, Lyn Title: My Life Publication: Providence, RI: Burning Deck, 1980 Edition: First edition. However, I must say that this is a book that will stay with me forever. As the book begins: Another significant feature of the work is how it has changed over time. My Life. I'm sorry, but when I wasn't confused I was a little bored. Lyn Hejinian is among the most prominent of contemporary American poets. Welcome back. Paperback, 9781557130242, 1557130248 My life by Lyn Hejinian, 1987, Sun & Moon Press edition, in English May 1st 2002 When originally published in 1980, My Life consisted of 37 prose sections, each consisting of 37 sentences; 37 was Hejinian's age at the time of its writing. To leave it at that, to say that the difference results from the different methods and intents, however, is to rest on but the surface of the matter and accomplish nothing. Buy a cheap copy of My Life book by Lyn Hejinian. The consistent self-presentation begins at the structural level of My Life. second five-star read of the year so far. Many people, in my experience, will come up against this book (because you don't merely read it--you come up against it) and say that they find it impenetrable or heavy-handed. Lyn Hejinian is among the most prominent of contemporary American poets. Upon its first publication by Sun & Moon Press (the edition reprinted here) the publication. Hejinian's work explores how personal identity may be constructed by and through language. Seven years later, a revised edition appeared, expanding the text to 45 sections of 45 sentences, in accordance with the author's age yet again. First published in 1980, and revised in 1987 and 2002, My Life is now firmly established in the postmodern canon. First published in 1980, and revised in 1987 and 2002, My Life is now firmly established in the postmodern canon. We’d love your help. Click here for the lowest price! Lyn Hejinian's My Life is one of the foundational texts of Language Poetry. The format though is beyond my understanding and the “storytelling” unnervingly cryptic. The language wasn't bad, but I'm not so sure why other reviewers here are cumming in their athleisure wear about it. Composed of forty-five sections, titled, each containing forty-five sentences, My Life is an experimental memoir poem. Lyn Hejinian on her groundbreaking My Life and reordering time. 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. My Life has ratings and 62 reviews. Read More. if you do like postmodernism, you'll fall in love. Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. It feels like a stream-of-consciousness Woolfian-Kundera daydream. Cart Her poem My Life has garnered accolades and fans inside and outside academia. Lyn Hejinian is among the most prominent of contemporary American poets. Her sort-of-autobiographical prose-poem "My Life" is widely regarded as Language writing's masterpiece. There are no discussion topics on this book yet. I could read this book once a year and love it for something new each time. Seller ID: 28404 The book arrived forty years into Hejinian's long and prolific career. The first version of My Life formally reflects the poet's life at the time of its writing, containing thirty-seven sections each of thirty-seven sentences. In her essay "The Rejection of Closure," published in The Language of Inquiry (UC Press, 2000) Hejinian explains the reasons for making such an "open text": My Life represents a breakthrough in several respects. Lyn Hejinian is among the most prominent of contemporary American poets. As a non-poet and rare poetry reader, I’m rarely impressed by this sort of high modernist plate-spinning trickery, unless it’s purely prose, but this book impresses by its emphasis on the word over the world (thanks Gass), which Hejinian’s bourgeois book-driven upbringing would have inculcated in her from the off. Her poem My Life has garnered accolades and fans inside and outside academia. 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. My Life 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. First edition of this landmark work of the Language tendency. 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. The chapter headings usually reappear embedded in the subsequent chapter text, hinting at mathematical structures or arrangements between chapters (or even sentences?). Lyn Hejinian is among the most prominent of contemporary American poets. My Life [Lyn Hejinian] on Amazon.com. As far as the general narrative, which forms a big, big part of My Life, it's hard why I should care in particular about this one upper middle class kid with a pony. '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. First published in 1980, and revised in 1987 and 2002, My Life is now firmly established in the postmodern canon. By Lyn Hejinian. From 1976 to 1984, Hejinian was editor of Tuumba Press, and since 1981 she has been the co-editor of Poetics Journal. Some are obviously convinced as to its merit, and searching the work's title reveals pleas from confused students who fail to discern its worth. I can keep reading it over and over, each time with a different reading. My Life is composed of titled prose paragraphs, each built of disjunctive sentences that avoid coherence. Motivated Proceduralism. Michael said: A work of slow art, as well as one of the few collections of Language poetry that has aged well. Absolutely brilliant. Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. If you're tacky enough to have had a happy childhood, leave it out of your books. Lyn Hejinian is the author of of over twenty volumes of poetry and critical prose, including several poetry collections previously published by Omnidawn: The Unfollowing, The Book of a Thousand Eyes, Saga | Circus, and The Fatalist. I can't believe this predates 'The Guard.' A work of slow art, as well as one of the few collections of Language poetry that has aged well, My Life in its original form consists of 37 sections, 37 sentences each, that condense the first 37 years of the life of avant-garde poet Lyn Hejinian into verse. 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. of the Sun & Moon edition (). 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). Lyn Hejinian delivers, in spurts and fits. Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2008. 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. Her long “novels” My Life (2002) and Oxata (1991) unabashedly draw on her own experiences and are in some ways recognizably autobiographical. She is often associated with the Language poets and is well known for her landmark work, “People must flatter their own eyes with their pathetic lives. Constructed by and through Language I can keep reading it over and,! 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