Calligraphy Typewriters: The Selected Poems of Larry Eigner

Larry Eigner began writing poetry at age eight and was first published at age nine. Revered by poets and artists across a broad spectrum of generations and schools, Eigner’s remarkably moving poetry was created through enormous effort: because of severe physical disabilities, he produced his texts by typing with only one index finger and thumb on a 1940 Royal manual typewriter, creating a body of work that is unparalleled in its originality.

Calligraphy Typewriters showcases the most celebrated of Eigner’s several thousand poems, which are an important part of both the Black Mountain/Projectivist movement of the 1950s and the Language movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In its two sections-Swampscott and Berkeley, named for the two locales where Eigner lived and worked-the volume traces his fantastic perception of the ordinary and his zeal for language. Eigner’s use of visual space, metaphor, and description provide fascinating insights into both his own life and the world that surrounded him. This volume maintains the distinctive visual spacing of his original typewritten manuscripts, reminders of his method, disability, and aesthetic sensibility.

A collection that reimagines the ordinary, Calligraphy Typewriters is the definitive gathering of Eigner’s work, and will serve well not only poets and students of poetry, but readers and writers of every vein.