Lyn Hejinian's The Book of a Thousand Eyes

Nothing can quite prepare readers for The Book of a Thousand Eyes, just out from Omnidawn. This is Hejinian’s largest scale book – yet it reflects the kind of intimacy – and affective and affecting charm – I associate with all her work. One key frame of the book is dreams – and there are many poems that have the quality of dreams – whether made-up or created in sleep – whose to say the difference? – Hejinian seems to say over and again. She also alludes to the Arabian Nights, as she has done before – tales that lead to more tales without closure. There is a great range of thinking in these poems; many topics are taken up, poetics figures significantly. The book is as much a primer in the possibilities of the imagination as an enactment of the imagination. Nonetheless, the poems are tightly formed, impeccably constructed, with a tonal precision and continuity that remains one of Hejinian’s hallmarks. I will be reading this book for years to come.

Lyn Hejinian at EPC and at PennSound.