Musings about My Life

The most recent assignment for our English class was to read a short book by Lyn Hejinian entitled My Life.  This book is a poetic autobiography written by a woman, for other women.  To quote the summary of the book on the back cover, "My Life is at once a poetic autobiography, a personal narrative, a woman's fiction, and an ongoing dialogue with the poet and her experience."  Throughout the book, Hejinian outlines her life from early childhood days to later on in her life.  Throughout her stories, it is difficult at times to determine whether the scene, image actually happened or if she is elaborating for the sake of fiction.  While there are definite narrative characteristics of the life story such as conversations and accounts in prose form, there are also some aspects that are poetic.  To begin, certain sections throughout the book read like stanzas.  While sentences are connected in paragraph form, they are disconnected and sound like they should be separated into different sections.  She is also brief with her descriptions and concise with her words.  My Life redefines poetry for me.  I am aware of various forms of poetry, traditional and non-traditional, but I had not read a form of poetry that read so much like a narrative, or fiction book before reading My Life.  Hejinian draws her readers in with relatable memories and images such as birthday parties, messy room, and horse rides as well as forces them to think critically about more complex ideas such as the role of women and their religious, social, and political influences.  She encourages her readers, men and women, to think about the lives of women and the things that contribute to who they are.  In this sense, My Life serves as an autobiography for all women.