Larry Eigner facts for kids
Laurence Joel Eigner, known as Larry Eigner, was an American poet who lived from 1927 to 1996. He was an important writer in the second half of the 1900s. Larry Eigner is especially known for being a key member of the Black Mountain School, a group of poets with unique ideas about writing.
His work also influenced a later group called the Language poets. Eigner's poems often appeared in the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine, even on the front page of its very first issue in 1978. Poet Ron Silliman dedicated a famous book of Language poetry, In the American Tree, to Eigner in 1986. Silliman said that Eigner's poetry went beyond the usual ideas of how poems should be written. Larry Eigner himself explained that his poems came from 'thinking' rather than from spoken words.
During his life, Larry Eigner wrote many books and had his poems published in over 100 different magazines and collections. Another famous writer, Charles Bukowski, once called him the "greatest living poet."
Larry Eigner's Life and Work
Larry Eigner faced many challenges from birth. He had a condition called cerebral palsy because of problems during his birth. This condition affected his movement and speech. He grew up in Swampscott, Massachusetts.
Despite his physical difficulties, Larry's mother, Bessie, strongly supported his education. He started writing poetry when he was about 8 years old. He would tell his poems to his mother or brother, Richard, who would write them down for him. Larry went to middle school at Massachusetts Hospital School. He also finished high school and some college courses through mail, which was called correspondence learning.
How Larry Eigner Wrote
Larry Eigner's first poems were published when he was only 9 years old. As he grew up and became a professional artist, he found amazing ways to write. He used a special 1940 Royal manual typewriter. He typed all his poems using only his right index finger and thumb.
Writing was a huge effort for Larry Eigner. His unique way of writing is seen as one of the best examples of an idea called "composition by field." This idea was suggested by poet Charles Olson. It means that the way a poem looks on the page, including spaces and line breaks, is just as important as the words themselves.
His Published Works
Larry Eigner wrote more than 40 books of poetry. Some of his well-known books include From the Sustaining Air (1953), Another Time in Fragments (1967), and Waters/Places/a Time (1983). His poems appeared in many important magazines like Origin and The Black Mountain Review. His work was also featured in a famous book called The New American Poetry, put together by Don Allen.
A huge collection of his work, called The Collected Poems of Larry Eigner, was published in four volumes in 2010. These books contain almost all the poems he wrote from 1937 to 1995. They were put together by Robert Grenier and Curtis Faville.
Larry Eigner passed away on February 3, 1996, due to pneumonia and other health issues. Today, poet Jennifer Bartlett is writing a book about his life.
