December 18, 2020

Larry Eigner’s poems and prose were unusual in that they influenced so many different poetic “schools.” Eigner’s first connection to poetry was through his mother Bessie, who read Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses to her son. After publishing poems by the age of 10, in Child Life Magazine, Eigner’s first adult interactions with poetry were through the poet Cid Corman. Shortly after, Eigner became immersed in the work of the Black Mountain Poets. He was one of the first critics of Charles Olson and an exemplar of Projective Verse. Later in life, Eigner became a seminal influence for so-called Language Poets, and most recently his work has been taken up by those studying eco-poetics. The poem below, suggested by Professor George Hart, shows both Eigner connection to Projective Verse and his concerns around environmental justice.