“The Mouth Is Just a Body Filled With Imagination”: Experimentation, Hunger and Dreams in Lyn Hejinian’s and Bernadette Mayer’s Language Poetry

Abstract

[Abstract] This Master’s thesis concentrates on the Language poetry of Lyn Hejinian (1941-) and Bernadette Mayer (1945-), specifically focusing on their long poems of the quotidian –My Life (1980) and Midwinter Day (1982)– but also addressing their remaining literary production when appropriate. Preceded by a general introduction on Language poetry and the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E movement, this study sets to analyze Hejinian’s and Mayer’s understanding of the relationship between the body and the text, highlighting their insistence on formal structure and their portrayal of hunger and dreams as everyday processes which are, nevertheless, intrinsically related to the power of literature. To pursue these objectives, I base my research on the seminal work of authors such as Jerome J. McGann, Ranjan Ghosh or Ernest Hartmann, among other secondary sources. To conclude, I reflect upon Language poetry’s conception of the female experience and its successful empowerment of women ters through acts of creation and experimentation. Privileging the text in itself is, as I demonstrate, a way of successfully transgressing academic and gender hierarchies.