Poetry. "I am very much interested in abstraction in language, in pushing language to the point that it becomes fact itself rather than some intermediary or condition."—Lyn Hejinian

Written between November 20, 2000, and September 24, 2001, SLOWLY explores a longer breath than Hejinian's previous poetry, and a more variable, percussive rhythm than her previous prose. The distinction between Sentences and Lines; that which pitches a work towards poetry or secures it within prose, is more difficult here than before, and whatever it is, it stops. It backs up and picks a new direction: "A pelican becomes a cloud, a cloud becomes / a wire, a wire binds Shostakovitch to the stained wall / of a small room becoming this in other words that / becoming my decision And how!"

Author City: BERKELEY, CA USA

Lyn Hejinian is a poet, essayist, and translator. Her groundbreaking book of poetry, MY LIFE, published by Sun & Moon/Green Integer, has had five reprintings from 1980-2002. Her most recent books include A BORDER COMEDY (Granary Books, 2001), SLOWLY and THE BEGINNER (both published by Tuumba Press, 2002), THE FATALIST (Omnidawn, 2003), SAGA/CIRCUS (Omnidawn, 2008), and THE BOOK OF A THOUSAND EYES (Omnidawn, 2012). The University of California Press published a collection of her essays entitled The Language of Inquiry in 2000. In the spring of 2007, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She teaches in the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley.