Reading (part 2) The Collected Poems of Larry Eigner

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                     poems

                               with

                          but

                                   one

                                         word

                                               per

                                                     line

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There are many pathways through the magnificent garden that is The Collected Poems of Larry Eigner (Stanford University Press, 2010). I’ve previously written about Eigner’s marvelous poems-from-the-news (click here if you please). Today I discuss and share a few examples of another fascinating subset of work in the books: poems that have but one word per line.

There are thirty-four (34) such poems among the 3,000 plus in The Collected Eigner. These one word-per-line poems excite me for a couple reasons. First, they are compelling evidence of a change in Eigner’s work that took place after 1970 or so.

In this regard, I was puzzled a few weeks ago when one of the editors of the Stanford four volume set concluded an essay by writing that Eigner’s “[p]oems written in the early 1950’s seem very like those written 40 years later” and that Eigner’s “poems – in style and approach – look remarkably like each other, separated by decades.”

I must disagree. To me, many poems written after 1970 don’t “look remarkably like” those completed by Eigner earlier in his career. Even just eyeballing the books, there’s an obvious tilt in Eigner’s last approximately 25 years towards poems – lines – of an even greater sparseness.

I write “even greater sparseness” purposely, to emphasize that the post-1970 change was a continuation, a refinement (though a striking one), of what Eigner had always done. From the start he almost always wrote poems of very short lines, hardly ever writing in long Whitman-esque (or Ginsberg “Howl”-like) lines crammed with words. In the 1950s and 1960s, poems with average words-per-line counts ranging from approximately 2.25 to 4.00 (or so) are typical for Eigner, and it’s quite common for those poems to include a good number of single-word lines.

Let’s look at a specific example, the untitled poem with “Again dawn” as its first line. Written in November 1959, it’s probably one of Eigner’s most read poems. A phrase from it was used as the title for his 1967 break-through Fulcrum Press collection (another time in fragments), and the poem was also included in Eigner’s Selected Poems, published five years later. In 1993, the full poem was posted in humongous letters on the outside of the University Art Museum in Berkeley. Here it is, scanned and slightly enlarged from the Stanford edition:

“Again Dawn” has – you can count ‘em – 29 words in its 12 lines, or (do the math) an average of 2.41 words-per-line. It also includes three single-word lines. All this is more-or-less typical of what Eigner wrote in the 1950s and 1960s, except that the words-per-line count is at the low end of the range of what you’ll find in those poems. By any measure, it’s very spare poetry.

But the spareness of Eigner’s poetry gets taken to a whole different place after around 1970. After approximately that date, Eigner wrote large numbers of poems that are measurably sparer than those written in the previous two decades. In this regard, the poems with but one word per line are Exhibit A.

Between 1950 and 1970, Eigner wrote no poems – zero – that exclusively used single word lines. In contrast, after 1970 he wrote a total of 43, with one or more written most every year between 1971 and 1992.

[A complete chronological list of all 43 one word-per-line poems is presented at the end of this post, for those who have or intend to get the books, or check them out in or from a library (currently, twenty libraries are listed as holding a copy of The Collected Eigner: click here to see). I highly recommend these books, despite the shifting of the left-side margins (click here) and the resulting challenge some may thus encounter (click here).]

Similar disparities in numbers of poems before and after circa 1970 can be seen if essentially any words-per-line average below 2.0 is used as the measuring standard. Consider, for example, Eigner poems that are almost but not quite entirely comprised of one-word lines. Among these are poems with five words over four lines (i.e, an average 1.25 words-per-line), six over five (an average of 1.20 words-per-line), and similar configurations, including 11 words, 9 lines (1.22), 15/13 (1.15), and 22/18 (1.22) -- these all actual totals taken from Eigner poems.

Again, I’ve done the counting and calculating. Before 1970, Eigner wrote only five poems that average 1.3 or fewer words per line (these were written in 1959, 1966, 1967, and two in 1969, respectively). In contrast – and again, I’ve counted them and could if called on specifically list them – Eigner wrote at least 59 such poems from 1970 forward, in addition to the 34 poems that contain only single word lines.

And there’s more! In the first two decades of Eigner’s work there are only a handful of poems – if that many – that average less than two words per line. In contrast, from 1970 on there are dozens of poems that average more than 1.3 words-per-line (and thus are not included in the totals given above) but nevertheless still average well under 2.0 words per line. These include poems of four words over three lines, or eight over six (1.33 words-per-line, as in Eigner ## 1663 and 983 ', respectively), and those, to take a couple of random (but real) examples, 26 words over 19 lines (1.36 words-per-line, as in # 976) and 29 over 21 (an average of 1.38, as in Eigner # 1042). Or for that matter, poems with nine words over six lines or 15 over 10 (an average of 1.5 words-per-line, as in for example, ## 429 and 464, respectively).

These statistics, admittedly, are hugely pedantic. Even, dare I say, legalistic. And so I hereby submit the case for your review: the increase in numbers is exponential, and of the main point there can be no doubt – there was a significant, measurable move by Eigner, circa 1970 and after, towards the writing of poems of the most spare lines, sparer even than the very spare lines in the poems he wrote in the 1950s and 1960s.

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In a moment or two here, I’m going to take a closer look at a few Eigner one-word-per-line poems. But before that, permit me to pause, to reflect on what I assume is a natural enough question: what caused the shift towards ever more spare poetry after around 1970?

An obvious answer is one I’ve already suggested: Eigner decided to continue along the path he’d long followed in poetry. Understatement. Sotto voce resulting in the suppression of words. Allowing in his poetry a freedom both to go along and (importantly here) end. To further foreground force and immediacy, not clarity. The many post-1970 poems of single-word lines, or extremely low word-per-line averages, are thus a refinement, a further pursuit, a heightened exploration, another facet, of the core principles that always animated Eigner’s work.

There’s also the possible influence of the at-the-time explorations of poetic minimalism by others. By all accounts Eigner was a voracious and vigorous reader, and surely the knew the work of, for example, Aram Saroyan, Clark Coolidge, and Robert Creeley, among others. Along the same lines, Eigner also had known for years the work of poet Cid Corman, who from the late 1950s forward wrote and published mostly very spare poems (and translated or adapted haiku from the Japanese).

Then there is Robert Grenier, whose Sentences, written in the early 1970s, have their fair share of poems made of but one or two word lines. Grenier and Eigner met January, 1971, and Grenier almost immediately became Eigner’s chief friend and only poetry organizer. After Eigner’s 1978 move to Berkeley, Grenier soon enough became a caretaker for Eigner, sharing a home with him for a decade. The influence, both ways, must have been immense.

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All right, let’s get this party started. Yes, let’s look at a few poems that have but one word per line!

Among the key characteristics of Eigner’s work, identified long ago by his fellow poet-readers, are “stanzaic phrases,”and poems that “proceeded . . . line to line” with “each line a new mind” (quoting here Robert Duncan (1967), Barrett Watten (1985), and Clark Coolidge (1978), respectively). With these characteristics in mind, it’s fascinating to consider Eigner’s poems that only use single-word lines. How does the “stanzaic phrase,” or “each line [as] a new mind” work when Eigner exclusively uses the sparest line of them all – the single word?

Well, first of all, some of Eigner’s poems with single-word lines, as is true of some of his work, proceed under an entirely different model than suggested by Duncan, Watten, and Coolidge. These poems aren’t so much manifestations of Eigner’s mind in motion bit an opportunity for him to say something in an almost aphoristic way. Here’s # 1201(March 31, 1980):

This poem, I suggest, is Eigner commenting on what happens when he writes, describing the action of ideas (“nuggets”), either in the mind or on the page. The words, separated as they are into individual lines, do enact the concept presented, but the entire poem is easily read as a single phrase. In this regard, note the traditional (and highly unusual for Eigner) uniform left side margin. That suggests to me that the poem’s meant to be read as a straight-line statement. [The endnote for this poem states that Eigner’s typescript margin note states, “Cd be a review of Rbt Grenier’s Oakland (Tuumba Press, Berkeley, 1980).”]

Something closer to “stanzaic phrases” can be found in the single-word line poems which line-to-line peg the elements of a scene (or scenes) perceived by Eigner. In these poems, each word is a kind of snapshot, with the poem as an entirety being a kind of lexical slide-show, complete with black-out frames (silences) between each image. Take a look at # 1671 (November 7, 1989), a very short example:
Sometimes, these slide-shows project out even more, and thus move even closer to the “each line a new mind” model. Consider please # 1375 (March 14, 1983) -- and I apologize that the scan here is akimbo:

Here, the concrete gets mixed with a touch of the more abstract (“far”), with the final word/line also multivalent, in that it could refer to an interior (the “corners” of a room), an intersection on the street, or, for that matter, those places in the mind where ideas meet. Query too, given the date of the poem, where the “snowy” arises from – Eigner most likely was in Berkeley. I can’t find weather records on-line, but snow in Berkeley (a dusting on the hilltops to the east) does occasionally happen.

But it’s also possible that “snowy” happened only in the poem, a memory or imagined event from Eigner’s mind. Or it could be a metaphor for obscure and soft that contrasts with the sharper “corners” that follows, or which serves as something more immediately (even viscerally) present than the “far” which precedes it. In any event, there’s no question but that there’s some, even much, word/line-to-word/line energy here.

As you might expect, the longer the single word line poems extend, the more opportunities arise for movement, at least across the poem. Here’s # 1278 (August 5, 1981), a very special nine worder:

Obviously, the first five words/lines here can be taken as concise descriptors of things seen (or remembered), perhaps even in the exact sequence presented. Notice, though, that “shadows,” – and this is a characteristic Eigner move – can relate both to the three objects that come before it (“bicycle // fence // tree”), the object (“wires”) that comes after it, and to none of those things at all.

Similarly, the “go // everywhere” that follows the first five lines could act on the immediately preceding “wires” or the whole kaboodle of what’s been presented before. But also, “go // everywhere” is also what happens in the poet’s (the reader’s) mind, a description of how thoughts travel in the head. And all this too can be said about the concluding “fading // distance” as well.

Now let’s end the main part of this post with the b-i-g one, the longest by far of Eigner’s poems that use only single-word lines. Recognize, please, that almost three-quarters of Eigner’s single word/line poems (32 of 43) are quite short, with five words/lines or less. There are also two poems each with six, seven, eight, nine, and ten words, respectively. That’s another ten, leaving one last poem.

And oh my as indicated that last poem is a w-h-o-p-p-e-r. Here it is (# 742 : January 19, 1973) in the full glory of its eighteen – yes, that’s right, eighteen (!) – words/lines:

That, folks, is a masterwork. An Eigner-ian masterwork, a poem-masterwork of any kind. I could write an entire post on this one, concerning its multitude of single-word stanziac lines, and how each of those words, or at least almost all, comes at you as a “new mind.” But you do all that, if you want. I can’t right now. You see:

I’m

still

just

blown

clear

Wow

away

!

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Larry Eigner
A Chronological List
of
Poems
-- A Total of Forty-Three (43) --
With
But
One
Word
Per
Line

[many thanks to Andrew Rippeon, editor of P-QUEUE,
who after this post was first published
kindly wrote and pointed out
an additional nine Eigner poems for this list]

Number....Date..............Volume, Page...Words/Lines......first lines or title

# 571 (October 12, 1971) ... III, 1049 ...... 7/7 .......... “sun // star”

# 654 (March 23, 1972) ... III, 1086 ...... 6/6 .......... “shape // shadow” [spaced letters]

# 659 (March 30, 1972) .... III, 1090 ...... 3/3 ....... “single // notes”

# 716 (August 23, 1972) ... III,1120 ...... 9/9 .......... “Acupuncture // bull // cape . . .”

# 742 (January 19, 1973) ... III, 1136 ...... 18/18 .......... “Individualism // wilderness”

# 769 (March 30, 1973) ... III, 1145 ...... 4/4 .......... “i // mean // at // moments”

# 794 (July 23, 1973) ... III, 1162 ...... 8/8 .......... “takes // away // from”

# 798 (July 27, 1973) ... III, 1164 ...... 10/10 .......... “breaths // between”.

# 810 ’’’ (September 20, 1973) ... III, 1173 ...... 3/3 .......... “super // cool // haiku”

# 816' (October 21, 1973) .... III, 1178 ...... 3/3 ....... “close // far”

# 838''' (Feb 13-21, 1974) .... III, 1193 ...... 4/4 ........ “branches // flagpole”

# 843' (March 18, 1974) ..... III, 1197 ....... 4/4 ....... “Fiddle // inside”

# 873' (July 5-8, 1974) ....... III, 1214 ....... 4/4 ........ “outpouring // hot”

# 890 (October 5, 1974) ... III, 1223 ...... 4/4 .......... “siren // heat”

# 893 (October 30, 1974) ... III, 1225 ..... 4/4 ......... “far // clear”

# 904 (December 18, 1974)...III, 1233 ...... 6/6 .......... like Buson said [title]

# 923' (May 6, 1975) ... III, 1246 ...... 4/4 .......... “home // room”

# 938 (August 15, 1975) ... III, 1258 ...... 4/4 .......... “Heart // grain”

# 941 (August 26, 1975) ... III, 1260 ...... 4/4 .......... “shuttle // flight”

# 944 (September 16, 1975)...III, 1262......3/3..........“all // gone // better”

# 957 (December 4, 1975)...III, 1270......4/4.......... “music // various”

# 1059 (January 16, 1978)...III, 1331......3/3.......... “snow // blinding”

# 1067 (March 3, 1978) ... III, 1334 ...... 3/3 .......... “snow // scape”

# 1094 (August 8, 1978) ... IV, 1351 ...... 4/4 .......... dans la nuit [title]

# 1098 (September 24, 1978)...IV, 1352......5/5 .......... “hills // earth”

# 1105 (October 24, 1978) ... IV, 1355 ...... 5/5 .......... “silent // bits”

# 1118 (January 3, 1979) ... IV, 1359 .... 3/3 ...... “listen // singers”

# 1140 (May 13, 1979) ... IV, 1367 ...... 4/4 .......... “dreaming // ears”

# 1158 (June 28, 1979) ... IV, 1374 ...... 5/5 .......... “packaging / extreme”

# 1169 (August 30, 1979) ... IV, 1378......4/4 .......... b o r d e r s p a c i f i c s [title]

# 1201 (March 31, 1980)...IV, 1393......4/4..........“nuggets // enough”

# 1278 (August 5, 1981)...IV, 1435......9/9..........“bicycle // fence”

# 1305 (December17-19, 1981) ... IV, 1448 ...... 5/5 .......... “switch // wall”

# 1306 (January 1, 1982) ... IV, 1449 ...... 3/3 .......... “sun // shaft”

# 1366 (January 13, 1983) ... IV, 1476......8/8.......... partly in a house [title]

# 1375 (March 14, 1983) ... IV, 1480 ...... 5/5 .......... “sky // clouds”

# 1414 (October 5, 1983) ... IV, 1500 ...... 3/3 ......... “bathroom / basketball”

# 1579 (September 21, 1986) ... IV, 1577 ...... 10/10 .......... the woods [title]

# 1637.8(January 12, 1988) ... IV, 1603 ...... 3/3 .......... q u a r t e t [title]

# 1671 (November 7, 1989) ... IV, 1624 ...... 4/4 .......... “tree // phonepole”

# 1683 (April 27, 1990) ... IV, 1630 ...... 5/5 .......... “shadow // motion”

# 1697.zx (July 20, 1991) ... IV, 1641 ...... 2/2 .......... Indoor Outdoor Life [title]

# 1717 (December 12, 1992) ... IV, 1654 ...... 7/7 .......... “south // door . . .”

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