Over the weekend I have been researching on poets for National Poet day coming up on August 21st, 2018 and I stumbled across Lawrence Joel “Larry” Eigner was born in Swampscott, Massachusetts, where he lived with his parents until moving to Berkeley, California, in 1978. Born with cerebral palsy, Eigner made use of a wheelchair throughout his life. He published more than 40 collections of poetry, among them From the Sustaining Air (1953), Another Time in Fragments (1967), Things Stirring / Together / or Far Away (1974), now there’s-a-morning-hulk of the sky (1981), Waters / Places / A Time (1983), and readiness / enough / depends / on (2000), as well as a volume of prose, Harbour / Quiet / Act / Around: Selected Prose (1978). The Collected Poems of Larry Eigner (2010) appears in four volumes.
Associated with the Black Mountain Poets, Eigner’s first book was published by poet Robert Creeley. Eigner’s poems often contain common images observed and presented in stripped-down lines, somewhat reminiscent of the poetry of William Carlos Williams. Poet Charles Bernstein has written, “In Eigner’s poems, one ‘fragment’ is riveted [sic] to the next, so that one becomes, in reading this work, likewise riveted by the uncanny democracy of details.” Eigner’s work appeared in the journals L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E and The Black Mountain Review and in the anthology The New American Poetry, 1945–1960 (1999).
When doing my research on Larry Eigner, I was very intrigued by how relatable he was too myself and how he wrote poetry on his typewriter his parents got him for his 13th birthday so that he could start expressing what he saw out there in the real world as a person with a disability.
One of my favorite poem that Larry Eigner has written has to definitely have to be “blackbird/blue sky…because it tells readers how Larry sees the world has a musical piano is own unique way.
I truly commend Larry for allowing himself to be expressive in a time where people with disabilities didn’t have much opportunity in society as history states and I also commend his parents for always pushing him to be the best but he can be despite his disability and the disadvantages he may have had within the universe it just comes to show if you have obstacles you should never quit you should always conquer what comes your way .
So what can we learn from Larry we could learn that expression is a significant expression is something you should never be sorry about whether people understand the message you’re trying to bring across or not expression could be powerful expression could be life-changing expiration could be inspiring
So no matter what Society says about us as individuals with disabilities we have to remember that our thought and expression matter and we should never give up on things we’re passionate about because our abilities need to be shown.
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