'What I wanted was nothing to do with monuments' Erring and Lyn Hejinian's The Guard

In considering Hejinian’s poetry, I will attempt to examine how this transformative approach to theory and practice is orchestrated within the structure of the poetry book. Furthermore, this essay will consider how the figure of the book presents what Hejinian terms a certain “lyric dilemma” or “aporia” between a formal construction and a provisional enquiry. This tension between structure and spontaneity is one which Hejinian’s poetics both embraces and celebrates. Eventually, I will suggest that we can further understand the tensions between formal “containment”, a spontaneous lyricism, and a transformative impulse, through a reading of “erring” in Hejinian’s The Guard (1984). Drawing from Hejinian’s early poetics, an “erring” reading of the momentum and dynamics generated within the scope of her poetry book will allow us to reflect upon the discreet negotiation between intentionality and provisionality which her poetry enacts.