Sunday, March 21, 2010  Eigner Book 1  The Collected Poems of
Larry Eigner is rapidly becoming my favorite poetry book,
period. As I read/ as I write/ there are many issues to address.
This portion of the review  will only be a beginning impression.
First is the mere physicality of the book. The four weighty
volumes, 3,070 poems in all, speak to Eigner's utter dedication
to this vocation that is called poet. Robert Grenier and Curtis
Faville's work on putting it together (a seven year task!) is a
testament to their passion. Eigner, in his life, published many
books (75 plus) but these remain scattered, some in small
editions, often expensive, or hard to get. More frustratingly is
the inability to look at how the poet transforms. Here, like any
collected work, the reader can study the growth of the poet --
which is particularly interesting for two reasons. Eigner began
writing and publishing at an early age. Also, due to Eigner's
physicality; both his cerebral palsy and the way he wrote, on a
manual typewrite