For those who love to be astonished. A programmatic discombobulation of the conventions of autobiography, if not writing itself, in an elaborate framework of discrete sentences and fragments. Memory reconstructed and re-construed with jarring verisimilitude, and without clinging too preciously to the flotation of device of ego.
— Tom
Sinuous, impressionistic, gorgeous. For fans of Bernadette Mayer, Language poetry, and the strange creative act of remembering things... savor the lines, savor the images, let Lyn's life be yours for a while.
— HeatherNew edition of one of the founding works of Language writing
Lyn Hejinian is among the most prominent of contemporary American poets. Her poem My Life has garnered accolades and fans inside and outside academia. First published in 1980, and revised in 1987 and 2002, My Life is now firmly established in the postmodern canon. This Wesleyan edition includes the 45-part prose poem sequence along with a closely related ten-part work titled My Life in the Nineties. An experimental intervention into the autobiographical genre, My Life explores the many ways in which language--the things people say and the ways they say them--shapes not only their identity, but also the very world around them.