Ordinarily I find Ron Silliman’s blog link-rich and intellectually entertaining. But his latest post on the work of Larry Eigner reads like a pastiche of avant-garde poetic theory. Here’s the particular passage that stuck in my craw:
“Eigner really was a philosopher of consciousness who used poetry almost architecturally to sculpt the most marvelous observations of the particular, even when he chose the simplest categorical terms to plot this out. There is one poem in this relatively slender volume that is perhaps the apotheosis of this approach to the poem. Like most of Eigner’s works, it has no title other than the date of its composition, ‘September 24 78’:
hills
earth
sky
night
clouds
Five nouns, no waiting.”
Silliman goes on to “analyze” this piece of writing with all the straight-faced ingenuity that others might devote to a thorny passage in Dante’s Inferno. His commentary is simply ludicrous.
Worse, it doesn’t serve Eigner well, because anyone reading it without knowing Eigner will almost certainly not look for his work — and that’s too bad. Eigner at his best is luminous, energetic, involving, and transparent (in Jean Follain’s sense of the word). He certainly doesn’t deserve to have readers dissuaded from his work by one of his friends.
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
One of these days I may post some comments on Eigner’s work—maybe after his Collected becomes available. Of course, I would have to deal with the question of "poems unworthy of quotation or analysis"; I don’t believe that Eigner is the only poet in history to produce nothing but excellent work. He wrote some weak poems—and a few pieces, like the one Silliman quoted, which are not poems at all, in
Dear Mr. Hutchison:<BR/><BR/>I won’t try to defend what doesn’t need defending, whereas you haven’t attempted to defend someone whom you implied did need it. <BR/><BR/>Eigner is good enough that he will survive weak recommendations. My take on Ron’s post is that it was a casual, fairly thin entry.* He had time to quote a single, simple poem, and to express his appreciation for it on a
Oh! And there’s the note on Silliman’s blog (his the first link under my "Links" list). I must assume this means he is "Anonymous," and that he finds his own Eigner rumination indefensible.
I love visits from the Bad Pun Police! Undercover, yet. But "Anonymous" has nothing to say about the substance of my post, which must mean he/she is unwilling — more likely unable — to take up the cudgle in defense of Silliman’s fantasia on this particular jotting by Eigner. I wonder why.
& this little bit of unimaginative name-calling will I’m sure redound greatly to L.E.’s reputation and readership. Thanks for nothing, as the feller sez.