Happily

by Lyn Hejinian

Poetry. Hejinian's characteristic linguistic intensity and philosophical approach are present in this book- length poem.

"Reading Lyn Hejinian's HAPPILY can make one imagine a second, somewhat happier Stein telling stories in single long or short lines that are aware of one another as they go about their own affairs."—Bob Perelman

"HAPPILY"...is a series of aphoristic statements interrogating 'hap' or, more prosaically, one's lot in life, one's fortune. This notion of chance as it is expressed through its root form, as in to happen, happenstance, happenings, haphazard, happenchance, happily, and happy happiness, becomes the generator that enlivens this ontological exploration of language's relationship to experience."—Claudia Rankine

Genres: Poetry, American

39 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is well known for her landmark work My Life (Sun & Moon, 1987, original version Burning Deck, 1980), as well as her book of essays, The Language of Inquiry (University of California Press, 2000).

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Michael Gossett · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more poetry I read, the more blase I feel about poetry in general. Lyn Hejinian constantly subverts the standard workshop/narrative poem I can't seem to get away from by creating philosophically rich work that enacts the process of thinking. And while she deserves greater praise than that, I have to thank her tremendously for being so prolific as to make overlooking her impossible.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

We could say the act of writing makes us happy, but the supposition is more involved than that. Prefer to say, "being in a poem." But what is the relation of writing to that? Especially to someone like Lyn Hejinian who read as much in philosophy and natural history as in poetry.

Suppose you could write something upon which no one would bother. But then, "hope" is a reader with feathers. So anyway happily you proceed: Say with a title. "A name by chance for anything on which we have no claim"(.) Think of an educator taking away the child's canvas to bestow it upon the parent: timing is everything. "The good is the chance with things that happen that inside and out time takes"(.) But then Plotinus says that "the good" will never be extrinsic proof? What is the "erect discourse"?

[I think of the proverb Dr. King included in his final speech, reflecting on the stabbing he'd undergone ten years earlier: "If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it's bent."]

So Hejinian: "A good person would be starred ill or well in a life he or she couldn't know how to refuse"(.) For our "onward chanced back" and "language is running" -- it's to this extent that it can be construed, only chancily, as "erect". So Hejinian, quotes -- which is no proof -- Flaubert, who wanted his "sentences erect while running -- almost an impossibility."

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It is the losing or loosing of it flawed
It is sufficient to say so of it a happiness accepted
It is mumbling bulk or drawing
It is a map to its own imperfections
It is unwarranted"

[Jamie Townsend · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is my favorite creative work by hejinian, alot of her other stuff just doesn't engage me that much