Larry Eigner Manuscripts (VMF045), 1970-1971 | MSS Manuscripts

Eigner, Larry (1927-1996)

Laurence Joel Eigner (August 7, 1927 – February 3, 1996) was an American poet and one of the lesser known Black Mountain poets, although he was influential among the next generation's Language poets.  Highlighting Eigner's influence on the "Language School" of poetry, his work often appeared in the journal L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, and was featured on the front page of its inaugural issue in February 1978.  During his lifetime, Eigner wrote dozens of books and published poems in more than 100 magazines and collections.

Eigner was critically palsied as a result of a bungled forceps delivery at birth and he spent most of his life in bed or in a wheelchair. Eigner grew up in Swampscott, Massachusetts. His parents believed that he was incapable of language until he taught himself to use a typewriter in his teens. As he matured into an artist, Eigner overcame many physical obstacles and limitations to achieve a mastery over the material text, producing his typescripts on a 1940 Royal manual typewriter using only his right index finger and thumb.

Eigner authored more than 40 books, among them From the Sustaining Air (1953), Another Time in Fragments (1967), Country/Harbor/Quiet/Act/Around-selected prose (1978), and Waters/Places/a Time (1983). His work appeared in well over a hundred magazines and collections, most notably Origin, The Black Mountain Review, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, and in Don Allen's anthology The New American Poetry.  In 2010, Stanford University Press published The Collected Poems of Larry Eigner, Volumes 1–4 (Vol. I: 1937–1958; Vol. II: 1958–1966; Vol. III: 1966–1978; Vol. IV: 1978–1995). The four volumes were edited by Robert Grenier and Curtis Faville.  Larry Eigner died from pneumonia and other complications on February 3, 1996.