From
Chapter I -- Swampscott
Swampscott,
Massachusetts is a working class New England town with a sea wall. Long known
as a seafaring fishing village, it previously hosted a large commercial fleet
in the early 1900s, which sailed daily from the bay. In the 1920s, one man in
three was a fisherman. The rest were shoemakers, shoe cutters, yeomen, farmers,
or merchants. The town currently has a tiny center with city offices in a
building referred to as the Edison Mansion -- a marker of the area. The
mansion, designed by James T Kelly, was once the home of Professor Eilhu
Thompson who founded Thompson- Houston Electric Company in a merger with Thomas
Edison. The city offices close at 1 pm. on Fridays. In the Swampscott Library,
now mostly filled with computers and Russian literature, there is a detailed history
of the town. Various important events include two incidents of whales washing
up on the shore, and Joseph Eigner being awarded a school fellowship. These details point to the nature of
the environment, an average working class small town. Although the librarians are
aware that a famous poet once lived in Swampscott, very few of his books reside
in the collection.
*
The Eigner family is one that had been
settled in the area for quite some time before Larry Eigner’s birth. His
younger brother, Richard Eigner describes his paternal grandfather, Joseph, as
a successful Lynn businessman. Lynn, the
neighboring town, was once part of the fishing village in which Larry Eigner
grew up. Richard recalls:
He
[Joseph] came as an immigrant without any resources at all…. the classic
story. He primarily became a shoe
manufacturer and when that business failed, he started another one and sold it
for a lot of money. He became connected with Yankee society in Lynn. He built a
mansion where he and his wife, Cecilia, raised eight children: three girls and
five boys, one of whom would become our father, Israel.
After selling the second shoe business,
the elder Eigner went into banking, a common business venture at the time. After
the crash of 1929, Joseph Eigner went bankrupt and the
financial situation became dire. However, he had been keeping real estate in his
wife’s name so the property remained in the family. One of these houses would
later become the place where Larry Eigner would spend most of his life.
In the crash, the elder not only had his large family to support but
also in-laws and an extended family. The stress was too much for him and he
died shortly after. However, Larry Eigner’s, Israel, father grew up in the
environment of a large, successful family. Israel would go onto the attend
Dartmouth before settling down with a girl from a neighboring town.
While Bessie Polansky had a less
materially secure childhood, Larry Eigner’s mother was raised as a typical New
Englander, spending her childhood in Salem, Massachusetts opposite the House of
Seven Gables. Eigner wrote of his mother, whose parents immigrated from Lithuania, “brought here from Chagall’s home town
(Slonim) at age 1 by grndma Polansky- 30-odd yrs ago ma thght aloud a few times
how her family and/or the town must be going up in Nazi smoke, let’s say.” Richard
describes his mother as “bookish and the star pupil, according to her account,
of Salem High School. She completely absorbed the Puritanical work ethic and
the high validation of literary culture.” It was this combination that would
become crucial in the raising of her sons. Her interest in Shakespeare,
Longfellow and traditional poetry would be the launching point of her eldest
son’s vocation.
*
Lawrence Joel Eigner was born on August
7, 1927 in Lynn. Eigner, who would be the oldest of three boys, described the
event of his birth as:
A
forceps injury..…. The doctor Richard Williams, Mother says, apologized for not
measuring her right. If he had, she’s said, I would have been delivered in the
Cesarean [stet.] way. The doctor told my folks they could sue him for
malpractice, but considering the thing an accident or something they let it
go…..Either my mother was too small or I was too big.
It is unclear whether the Eigner family
knew immediately that their eldest had cerebral palsy. Upon her son’s birth,
Bessie began recording the events in a baby book, which would later include
details of his two brothers as well. In her impeccable handwriting she notes
her first son’s development:
Sept.
26, 1927; baby began to follow voices…baby cooed today on his second month’s
birthday, and during the week he started to try to raise himself in a sitting
posture….
All these notes point to average
occurances in the infant’s development. However, his physical difference would later
be noted. On March 3, 1930, Bessie writes:
Larry
talks not vey plainly but well enough to be understood. He seems to have a very
good memory. He knows quite a number of nursery rhymes. At the end of last
summer he began to sit without back support. Although there seems to be little
improvement in his left side --it isn’t very marked. I find that excitement upsets
him, must be very careful.
In biographical information about the
poet, Richard writes:
Along with the identification of Larry's birth injury as
cerebral palsy came the widely accepted claim that his disability impaired
cognitive capacity, as if limitation on Larry's mental development would match
limitations on his capacity to manage his body's physical movements…Bess would
not accept this claim…..It was my mother’s campaign to have
Larry educated as much as he was. At that time, it was thought that children
like Larry could not be educated.
The family lived on Pine Street in
Swampscott for two years after Eigner’s birth before moving to 23 Bates Road. Here,
the poet would spend the first 50 years of his life rarely venturing out with
the exception of three years of schooling at the Massachusetts Hospital School
and summers at Camp Jened for the Handicapped in New York State. Richard
describes that house at 23 Bates Road as a traditional New England two family
residence. At first, the Eigners, lived on the second floor while renting out
the first.
This
arrangement must have been difficult for Bessie. As they lived upstairs, the
young poet rarely went out and it was up to his mother to move him from room to
room. Soon, the family moved to the
first floor and the glassed-porch would become the poet’s studio. It would be
from this porch that Eigner would observe the nature and all the neighborhood
coming and goings.
23 Bates Road is now part of an upper
class neighborhood with well-kept houses, most of which have large additions.
In the 1920s, though, Italian immigrants, with the exception of the Eigner
family, inhabited the short street. Richard describes “the principal address” as:
A
tract of land on which a house was built. Most of it [the street] was undeveloped.
On the tracts that had been developed, all the
families except
for one, came from the same part of Italy
on the Adriatic Sea: a very impoverished town
called Terre.
They all had the same name, Matera and almost
of them were general contractors.
Although the sea was within a few
blocks, one would have to take a windy trail that would have been impossible to
navigate with an old-fashioned wheelchair. Bates Road is crossed with Charlotte
Street, named after an Eigner cousin, led to a dead end and forest. Richard
notes:
You
walked through a woodsy path and came to a beach. We did have a big
bulky wheelchair for outside. We were
always aware that the whole Atlantic Ocean was out there. We could hear the
sound…there were things like waves and so forth, but to get to the beach, you
had to go through a real wooded swamp-like area through skunk cabbage; I
remember pushing that wicker chair through the woods.
Despite the rarity of such journeys,
the ocean would become a main character in both Eigner’s early and later poems.
*
Bessie had her son involved in physical
therapy from early on. In an interview, Eigner describes:
As
a kid, physiotherapy was the hardest part of the time (I went to the clinic in
Boston’s Children’s Hospital 3 times a week then at the age of 10 or 11 stayed
there as an in-patient for a few months) real scary, like mountain climbing on
a seesaw when I tried walking, and perverse failure when flexing my left ankle.
All things else were like physiotherapy (While my folks would walk me too, from
bedroom to kitchen standing behind holding me: I’d also sit on chairs as well
as armchairs, and travel, before I had the walker, around the house on my
knees.)
From
Chapter Five: Cid Corman’s Radio Program
The beginning of Eigner’s lifetime correspondence
with poets started with a postcard to Boston poet Cid Corman who had a radio
show. This letter was the connection that would lead Eigner into the world of
poetry. The poet describes the event:
In
1949, a couple of months after finishing up the last course (at the U of
Chicago) I bumped into Cid Corman reading Yeats, on the radio, in his first
program, I gather, for Boston. I disagreed with his non-declamatory way of
reading and wrote him so. This began a correspondence in which I got introduced
to things, and the ice broke considerably.
Although just three years older, Corman
quickly took on a mentorship role to the “younger poet.” In April 1950, shortly after their
correspondence began Corman writes, “Your writing pleases me. It is gratifying
that you have only taken criticism, but persisted with it to the point of
improvement.” He follows with, “You must teach yourself – and be patient with
yourself. If you can’t be, who else is likely to be -- as who else can
positively care as much?”
It was through Corman that Eigner’s
interest in poetry was rekindled after a pause from his engagement with it as a
teenager. Both through his correspondence courses with the University of
Chicago and his mother’s influence, the poet had exclusively been exposed to
more traditional poetry. Well into his teenage years, he continued to write
rhyming verse. Not only was this what his was familiar with, but also poetry in
rhyme made it easier to retain while waiting for a family member to transcribe
it. His first collection, Poems,
published in 8th grade was a reflection of such. Though, the poet was not
reading Longfellow exclusively. By the time he wrote to Corman, he was deeply
involved with e.e. Cummings and Hart Crane.
As Eigner continued to correspond with
the Bostonian and send him poems, Corman encouraged his friend to be more open
and experimental. It was through this exchange that Eigner began to leave
behind the poetry of his youth in what Richard describes as “rebelling against
his mother.” Corman, perhaps sensing
rebellion writes, “Fewer people who liked your earlier things will like these
newer pieces, but I think you must realize yourself how much better they are.” Corman
advises, “If you are unsatisfied with a poem, any part of it, keep at it. Say
exactly what you want to – that is, keep the overtones, ambiguities, tied to
your ideas. Pack your words tight – and yet naturally.” He also mentions, “You might look over some
Williams” for a reference to directness.
The concepts of “immediacy and
force” were two considerations that would stick with Eigner throughout his
vocation.
Despite
Corman’s worry that “some people would not like his work” Eigner began
publishing shortly after this first correspondence. According to Curtis
Fayville:
Eigner's
first published poem--aside from a number of juvenile pieces published prior to
age 14--appeared in the fugitive little magazine Goad #3 [Summer 1952], edited by Horace Schwartz. Schwartz was a
connected participant in the literary world of the Bay Area in the 1950's and
'60's, who knew Rexroth, Kees (both he and Schwartz had come from Nebraska) and
many other local figures, and briefly ran a bookstore in San Francisco (Named
the Rexroth bookstore). Goad lasted
for four issues, and also published early work by Creeley and Ferlinghetti.
Corman’s own magazine Origin had its beginnings in 1950 with a
correspondence, previous to the magazine’s publication, between Charles Olson
and the editor. Of the magazine, the first contributor, Olson, writes, “The
thing you ought to know, is, that you have the will to make a MAG is a very
fine thing, and is hailed by this citizen.” Olson urges Corman to resist taking
money from the University (in this case Brandeis) as he worries that the
association will damage the integrity of the magazine. He writes:
yr
two letters arrived today, about BRANDEIS. But I am here most practical: the test
you are looking for, of such censorship as Lewisohn, Hindus and Elder Gerard
is, precisely, these 50 pages, NOT, the first year of yr editorship. For you
will put yourself in the position of earning their approval, invariably, that
you will woo it, that first year. Which, my friend, is worse than outright
censorship.
Olson pushed to use the first issue
of Origin as a platform for his work
- what would become the Maximus Poems - urging Corman, “Can you, will you, by
some means (even a notary, maybe?) give me absolute assurance you will (despite
all weathers, fair or foul) give me the 40 pages of issue #1 you have told me
you plan to give me?” And on the envelop
of a letter dated March 1, 51, Olson writes, “O my sone, rise from thy
bed…/work what is wise.” This became the “motto” for Origin securing Charles Olson’s hand in the venture. *
From Chapter 10 Berkley/Independent Living
The Independent Living Movement had its
early beginnings in 1962 when Ed Roberts applied to the University of
California, Berkeley. Roberts was rejected by the Dean on the grounds, “We have
tried cripples before and it didn’t work.” In addition to non-accessible
classrooms and libraries, a major issue for Roberts was that there was no
dormitory that could support the iron lung he slept in as treatment for polio. The attitude of the time was best expressed
by the poet Josephine Miles who thought of the inaccessible campus as “simply
not being built for me.” Miles, who had acute rheumatoid arthritis, dealt with
the issue of mobility by being carried from location to location by assistants
rather than using a wheelchair. She,
like most of society, viewed disability as a personal problem.
However, with Roberts persisting, the
school soon agreed to let him reside on the third floor of Crowall Hospital and
enlist fellow students to help him get around campus. He joined with others to
form the activist group, The Rolling Quads. In 1968, when the Quads faced eviction, they
organized a revolt that would lead to the creation of curb cuts and other
accessibility - on and off campus. Robert’s revolution also led to the Physically
Disabled Students Program (PDSP).
PDSP took its ideas from a program that
gave minorities resources to prevent dropouts. Out of this came the first
Center for Independent Living (CIL). The basis of the CIL was to provide people
with disabilities complete control over where and how they wanted to live.
Previously, people with disabilities had been resigned to spending their lives in
institutions or, in rare cases such as Eigner’s, provided for by their
families. In both cases, neither led to a choice
of lifestyle. Wheelchairs themselves were not geared toward independence
nor thought of as mobility tools, hence the outdated expression “wheelchair
bound.” They were devices that provided limited movement in hospitals or at
homes.
Instituted in 1972, the Center for
Independent Living was run by people with disabilities who had control over who
their caretakers would be and where they would live. The founding of the CIL
coincided with Judy Heumann’s civil rights struggle in New York City. In 1970,
Heumann, a quadriplegic who had had polio, was denied a license to teach in New
York City Public Schools despite passing the oral and written tests. When she
flunked the physical, Heumann sued the Department of Education with a
discrimination charge, and the case was settled in the defendant’s favor. If
these events crossed the Eigner’s path in his copious reading, he did not
mention it in letters. However, the movement was not alien to Richard. It was
with the expectation that Richard would eventually take over his mother’s role
as caregiver that he set up house in Berkeley.
This was the environment that Larry Eigner
moved into when he arrived in the west in 1978. After Israel’s death, it became
clear that Bessie would be unable to care for her son herself. Once in Berkley,
Richard became the poet’s legal conservator, and it was his intention that his
brother become as independent as possible.
The
stab at independence didn’t work out as successfully as the poet’s family had
hoped. On January 6, 1978 Eigner notes, in a letter to Bessie, “electric [wheel]chair
arrived fifteen days ago.” This was his first and meant to provide new
independence, particularly in the accessible landscape of Berkeley. But things
with the chair weren’t so easy. The poet describes an accident of falling over
on campus, “legging myself up with the help up and back with the help of a cop
and a passerby.” He complained:
It
won’t fold and the batteries, a big job to move, make it too heavy to lift. We
agreed, too, it’s not so good for around the house. For instance, I can push
backward with my feet, but not forward, it’s soo hvy, and my hand is kept
rather busy driving.
Ultimately,
he abandoned the new technology for the old, continuing, as he always had, to
“scoot” throughout the house in his manual chair.
Upon first arriving in Berkeley,
Richard encouraged the poet to settle in a group home (independent living)
situation. Eigner, however, who had described his life as “the longest
childhood ever,” was recalcitrant against the independence that Richard and his
sister-in-law Beverly encouraged. At
first, he lived in a group home similar to the Center for Independent Living on
La Loma Street. Throughout letters to his mother, one gets to know his
housemates, the attendants, and the poet’s frustration with them. The house itself, although Eigner didn’t entirely
hate it, was an environment of endless drama, particularly around the
staff. He laments to his mother:
The
phone’s been disconnected again, 2nd time this year. This time when
Anna some weeks ago got a private extension of the one downstairs here was
switched to L’s room (L is the attendant who arrived from Philly Easter Monday
and the phone company, getting wind of this and disapproving has disconnected.
This is the story I get anyway….One remark was that one of the attendants
charges her (Adele) when he reads to her (the newest ord…after all).
Cid Corman suggested, “You sound
like your living in the center of a 3-ring circus – and enjoying every minute
of it. It don’t sound like the porch in Swampscott.”
However, the Center for
Independent Living didn’t have the facilities that the Eigners had hoped. Beverly
Eigner remembers:
We thought it
would be a good resource for Larry when he came out here, but it didn’t work
out that way. Perhaps The Center was too early in its evolution but it didn’t
really help us at all. Actually, it was negative because on two occasions, I
brought him into a socialization group, and they said Larry was ‘too spoiled.’ [I]
Took him to Cerebral Palsy Association and Larry told them all he could do and that
he didn’t need any help which was frustrating because he didn’t listen to what
they offered. But we found that he needed some social interaction outside of us
because we would cater to his needs and not every one would. So that was a
problem, socially.
