Lyn Hejinian

Lyn Hejinian ( ; May 17, 1941 – February 24, 2024) was an American poet, essayist, translator, and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is known for her landmark work My Life (Sun & Moon, 1987, original version Burning Deck, 1980), as well as her book of essays, The Language of Inquiry (University of California Press, 2000).

Biography Lyn Hejinian was born in the San Francisco Bay Area to Carolyn Erskine and Chaffee Earl Hall, Jr. She attended Harvard University where she met and married John P. Hejinian in 1961. She graduated from Harvard in 1963. Lyn and John had two children and eventually divorced.

Hejinian lived in Berkeley, California, with her husband composer/musician Larry Ochs. She published over a dozen books of poetry and numerous books of essays as well as two volumes of translations of the Russian poet Arkadii Dragomoshchenko. From 1976 to 1984 she was editor of Tuumba Press, and from 1981 to 1999 she co-edited (with Barrett Watten) Poetics Journal. She was the co-editor of Atelos, which publishes cross-genre collaborations between poets and other artists.

Hejinian also worked on a number of collaborative projects with painters, musicians, and filmmakers. With Tom Mandel, Barrett Watten, Ron Silliman, Kit Robinson, Carla Harryman, Rae Armantrout, Ted Pearson, Steve Benson, and Bob Perelman, she was a co-author of The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography. (Detroit, MI: Mode A/This Press, 2006–2010). With Leslie Scalapino, she organized Poets in Need to assist poets facing crises. She taught poetics and contemporary literature at University of California, Berkeley. Hejinian lectured in Russia and around Europe. She received grants and awards from the California Arts Council, the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Fund, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation and served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2007 to 2012.

Hejinian sponsored the NBC Thursday Night DeCal course at UC Berkeley.

Hejinian died on February 24, 2024, at the age of 82.