Lyn Hejinian

Jeffrey Gray (Seton Hall University)

Ed. by Nick Selby, University of East Anglia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 17 May 1941
Died 24 Feb 2024
Activity 1972-2024

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Essayist
Poet
Publisher
Translator

Resources

Hejinian's Works

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The experimental poet, essayist, translator, and publisher Lyn Hejinian, best known for her 1987 volume

My Life

, was one of the founders of the “language” movement in poetry – a name in part derived from a seminal journal titled

L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E,

which appeared in the late 1970s. The language movement developed in opposition to the mimetic, personal, and subjective poetry that predominated after World War II and which the language poets view as “transparent” and naively expressivist, since it claims to represent a world without acknowledging the role of language in shaping that world. Their own work, by contrast, foregrounds the materiality of language and its disjunctions, suggesting an idea of language as not merely existing to accommodate thoughts or feelings, but largely to…

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4322 words

Citation: Gray, Jeffrey. "Lyn Hejinian". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 March 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12106, accessed 21 November 2024.]