My Life (Green Integer Books, 39) (Paperback)

by Lyn Hejinian (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
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. Upon its first Sun & Moon publication in 1987, the book began (and continues to be) taught in hundreds of college and university courses.

About the Author
Author of The Cold of Poetry, The Cell, and other books, San Francisco poet Lyn Hejinian is today recognized as one of the major American poets.

Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Green Integer; First Thus edition (May 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931243336
• ISBN-13: 978-1931243339
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 4.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #75,768 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars textures woven in an experimental pattern, August 21, 2000

By	Jeremy P. Bushnell (imaginaryyear.com) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: My Life (Sun & Moon Classics) (Paperback)

One can't talk about this book without making mention of its remarkable structure and history: it was intially written when Ms. Hejinian was thirty-seven, and it consisted of thirty-seven poems, each one containing impressions drawn from the corresponding year of her life. Each of these poems was composed of thirty-seven sentences, as well.

Eight years later, when Ms. Hejinian was forty-five, she revised My Life, adding eight new poems (to bring the total up to forty-five) and inserting eight new sentences into each of the previous poems, adding a new layer of understanding and complexity to the earlier work and questioning the idea that a piece of writing (or the evolution of the self) can ever be "finished."

Additionally, the details that she focuses on in these poems and the way these details are ordered comprise a quiet subversion of traditional biographical structure. Ms. Hejinian avoids the normal biographical trajectories-- "here's how I became a success" or "here are the most important events in my life" -- instead she focuses on minutae like the pattern of tiles in a floor. She also resists the impulse to explain whether these details influenced her later self or even why they are important at all, leaving much up to the reader to determine.

This all contributes to making this a wonderful, astonishing, surprising book; a new way of investigating the experience of being human.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must, February 4, 2006

By	apples - See all my reviews

In order to fully understand the postmodern world, the subversive industry of autobiograpy, the collision between poetry and prose, the influence of hybridity, and the potential of revision any reader of contemporary poetry needs to begin here.

The writing is complex without being hermetic. Difficult without being resistant. My Life is a necessary text. Generous in its insights, its complicated declarations. This is a perfect marriage of philosophy, poetry, and mathematics.

Read this always and often.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic, May 26, 2004

By	Joe Omalley (san francisco) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The structure of this book with 45 poems of 45 sentences, one for each year of Hejinian's life, makes the reading of the book like a scale miniature (5 minutes to 1 year) life. It makes you think about your own life and about the relative duration of life events. I read this book right after my first kid was born and I was continually thinking about the possible effect of this event on my life through time.

The book's stucture also allows Hejinian the freedom to stretch out without losing the reader. If you get lost on one poem, you are right back on track for the next one.