Lyn Hejinian; The Cold of Poetry
Series No.: SMC 042
ISBN: 978-1557130631, Pages: 204
A Sun & Moon title.
* * *
Though comprised of 10 longish poems written over the last 20 years, this book is very much a whole, one that reflects Lyn Hejinian's characteristic interest in the consistency and inconsistency of memory and self, and the role that writing plays in preserving and transforming these. Her formal ingenuity also comes clear. In "Gesualdo'' she rewrites a standard musical biography of that composer to provide a portrait of him as Hejinian, and of her as him. "The Composition of the Cell" turns the propositional form of Wittgenstein's Tractatus into a lyric medium. Hejinian is certainly an intellectual and self-conscious poet, but her work is also appealingly alert to daily life in these penetrating, instructive and thoroughly enjoyable poems. (Publisher's Weekly)