The Beginner

by Lyn Hejinian

This new entry by Lyn Hejinian in the popular Spectacular Chapbooks series meditates on the figure of the beginner, with a sequence of dates sprinkled through the text suggesting a temporal framework for the writer's words. "You think of confusion as rapid?/ As it proceeds at a turtle's pace by halves?/ Coming or going?/ One can't tell./ The turtle halves in motion, etc., as et cetera in celebration we don't know wholes (heroes (March 21))." Designed and with a cover painting by Emilie Clark, who also collaborated with Hejinian on other projects. Saddlestapled.

Genres: Poetry

24 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

[Keifer May · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great long poem that considers beginning and the becoming being of a beginner. The abstractness synthesized with the voice in Hejinian's poem is really stunning, she performs a transcendental philosophy the event or a beginning and winds up discovering that "... the the things we're talking about—they've always existed." There is no beginning other than the play and the seeming beginning. Perhaps the beginner has always been, is becoming over and over. I can almost see reincarnation in this.

I'm glad I found this tucked between her small group of books at the library.