Larry Eigner (August 7, 1927 – February 3, 1996), also known as Laurence Joel Eigner,[1] was an American poet of the second half of the twentieth century and one of the principal figures of the Black Mountain School.[2]
Eigner is associated with the Black Mountain poets and was influential among Language poets.[3] Highlighting Eigner's influence on the "Language School" of poetry, his work often appeared in the journal L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, and was featured on the front page of its inaugural issue in February 1978.
Ron Silliman dedicated the 1986 anthology of Language poetry, In the American Tree, to Eigner.[4] In the introduction to In the American Tree, Silliman identifies Eigner as a poet who has "transcended the problematic constraints" of Olson's speech-based projectivist poetics.[5] Eigner has himself pointed out that his poetry originates in 'thinking' rather than speech.[citation needed]
During his lifetime, Eigner wrote dozens of books and published poems in more than 100 magazines and collections. Charles Bukowski once called him the "greatest living poet."[6]
- ^ LCNAF on-line (Library of Congress Authority Files) lists Eigner's full name as Laurence Joel Eigner
- ^ and for many poets, including Eigner, this centered around Charles Olson at Black Mountain College in the mid-20th Century.
- ^ particularly Ron Silliman and Charles Bernstein, both of whom are on record as admirers of his work
- ^ Silliman, Ronald, ed. In the American Tree. Orono: National Poetry Foundation, 1986.
- ^ Silliman, Ronald, ed. In the American Tree. Orono: National Poetry Foundation, 1986. xvii.
- ^ "Bukowski's first published interview, by Arnold L. Kaye, Los Angeles Correspondent to the Chicago Literary Times, March, 1963". Bukowski.net. Retrieved 2018-02-17.