Help Kickstart the first biography of Larry Eigner

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

KICKSTARTER APPEAL for Larry Eigner Biography

Jennifer Bartlett is working on a biography of Larry Eigner, one of the most interesting poets to appear in Donald Allen’s anthology, New American Poetry 1945-1960. Since she is not affiliated with an institution that can bestow the kind of research support this project deserves, she has launched a Kickstarter campaign to request our assistance. Travel and lodging to dig through archives at libraries scattered across the nation is not cheap, yet the information provided by holographs is often the most crucial material needed in making a literary biography worthy of its subject. Since the Guggenheim Foundation has passed on the opportunity to provide Jennifer Bartlett with sufficient resources, she is hoping that her fellow poets and cultural workers will bolster her efforts with the endorsement of our pocketbooks, thin though they might be compared with the largesse of certain foundations.

It should be noted that Ms. Bartlett has the full endorsement of the Larry Eigner estate and she already has a contract with the University of Alabama Press to publish the book. Additionally, I would like to note that George Hart, one of my colleagues at CSULB, has been working with her on editing some letters by Eigner that are in the final stages of vetting for publication in Poetry magazine. Bartlett herself is a fine poet and is also the co-editor of Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability. In other words, she is regarded by a wide range of interested parties, including Ron Silliman, to be eminently qualified to produce an intriguing and insightful account of Larry Eigner’s life and writing.

At this point, Ms. Bartlett has 69 backers who have pledged $3,385. The project needs to get additional pledges of slightly over $1600 in the next 15 days. I am urging everyone who can make any kind of contribution (from $10 on up) to do so. Please join me in giving this project a groundswell of affirmation and encouragement.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/894916256/the-larry-eigner-project

 

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