Positions of the Sun

by Lyn Hejinian

Literary Nonfiction. Poetry. POSITIONS OF THE SUN is a sometimes melancholy, sometimes militant cross-genre experiment, combining elements of (largely non-narrative) fiction, with those of local journalism, and of cultural and literary criticism. Its twenty-six interlocking "essays with characters" (plus a "Coda") explore the mid-2000s financial "crisis," the spread of neoliberalism, and attempts by activists and artists to counter it, through the movements and daily lives of a wide-ranging cast of characters located in the Bay Area. In POSITIONS, Hejinian plays the bricoleur, bringing together whatever's needed in her approach to the subject, whether it's the paratactic tactics of poetry, scholarship's critical patchwork, or characters set in time that evokes but frustrates narrative. POSITIONS OF THE SUN is the second work in Belladonna*'s Germinal Texts Series, which seeks to trace feminist avant-garde histories and the poetic lineages they produce.

Genres: Poetry

176 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2018

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

[a r g · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Time, meanwhile, is crowded with the doings of human life, at least for humans. And it is thick with contingencies and chance occurrences, but also with the overlooked, misunderstood, maltreated. Positions is, I hope, about political activism and its aesthetic corollary in intellectual and everyday life, which I continue to value as interrelated and reciprocally-informing spheres."

[Avery Marley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Positions of the Sun is a characteristically incisive and formally restless work from Lyn Hejinian. Rather than narrating the mid-2000s financial crisis directly, Hejinian refracts it through twenty-six interlocking “essays with characters,” where thought, perception, and structure take precedence over plot. The book’s paratactic movement and shifting voices produce a textured field of relations, economic, social, and linguistic, that resists simplification.

Hejinian’s compositional method feels deliberately open and investigative, assembling fragments of discourse, observation, and reflection into something that is at once analytical and deeply literary. The result is less an account of crisis than an exploration of how instability permeates everyday life, language, and subjectivity. Demanding but rewarding, this is a work that invites slow, attentive reading.

[Ewoud · Rating 5 out of 5]

'It is / immune to exegesis and therefore beloved / and promises to speak the truth like a desert'

[Ethan P · Rating 5 out of 5]

two thumbs up. if you’re a fan of joanne kyger, you might enjoy this—maybe not—i am and did.

[Monster Okay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feel very gross only giving this three stars but here I am. It's a masterpiece though. :(