Review: Things Stirring Together Or Far Away by Larry Eigner (published 1974)

Things Stirring Together Or Far Away (1974) by Larry Eigner is a fragmented collage-like poetic exposition of word and scene, thought and memory, like frayed or torn pieces of fabric sprung from a damaged mind. As though grasping for meaning, Eigner succeeds in touching portrayals of the rapidity and speed by which life passes us by, allowing us to pause for visions that seem to suddenly appear, slowing them down enough, offering a kind of sixth sense of presence.

Eigner's poetry is not cut cleanly - literally (as well as symbolically). His words are chopped along the page unevenly, indents here and there, spaces and gaps fill the page just as much as his actual writing. He shares what he sees: a bird, headlights, stone, and sometimes deeper images such as "veins from mountains", "hours of a mind", or "the fear in the cost of false alarms".

Sometimes, his writing is more straight-forward in its depictions of scenes: "the street rolled on the hill, past other slopes", "an empty room surrounded by thoughts", "the paint smelling from next door"...

For all its seemingly spliced internal dialogue, Eigner masters the art of propelling images, scenes, and objects into and within their landscapes, interiors, habitats, and environments. He, although perhaps not visually but allusively, blends them together, his poetry coming together by a subtle ability to vex sights and sounds normally taken for granted. By focusing in on their inherent separation and ultimate layering, each becomes a type of postmodern fragmentation, or even a shattering of the current world, finally able to be grasped and reckoned with.

I, for one, am looking forward to reading more of Larry Eigner's work.