Hannah Adelle Weiner (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Finegold) (November 4, 1928 – September 11, 1997) was an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

who is often grouped with the ''

Language poets The Language poets (or ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' poets, after the magazine of that name) are an avant-garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Bernadette Mayer, Leslie Scalapi ...

'' because of the prominent place she assumed in the poetics of that group.

Early life and writings

Weiner was born in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

and attended

Classical High School Classical High School, founded in 1843, is a public magnet school in the Providence School District, in Providence, Rhode Island. It was originally an all-male school but has since become co-ed. Classical's motto is ''Certare, Petere, Reperire, ...

, until 1946, and then

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

. She graduated with a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in 1950, with a dissertation on

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...

. Working in publishing and then in

Bloomingdale's Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain; it was founded in New York City by Joseph B. Bloomingdale, Joseph B. and Lyman G. Bloomingdale in 1861. A third brother, Emanuel Watson Bloomingdale, was also involved in the bus ...

department store, she was married and then divorced after four years. Weiner started writing poetry in 1963 though her first

chapbook A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered bookle ...

, ''The Magritte Poems'' after

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bounda ...

, was published in 1970. It is not indicative of her latter work, being "basically a New York School attempt to write verse in response to the paintings of René Magritte". During the 1960s she also organized and participated in a number of

happenings A happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow during the 1950s to describe a range of art-related events. History Origins Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happen ...

with other members of the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

art scene, where she had been living for some time. These included 'Hannah Weiner at Her Job', "a sort of open house hosted by her employer, A.H. Schreiber Co., Inc." and 'Fashion Show Poetry Event' with Eduardo Costa, John Perreault,

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

and others in a "collaborative and innovative enterprise that incorporated conceptual art, design, poetry and performance."

Mature work

In the early 1970s, Weiner began writing a series of journals that were partly the result of her experiments with automatic writing and partly a result of her

schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...

. Judith Goldman claims that politics and ethics were central to a mode of writing she developed and called "clair-style," which used "words and phrases clairvoyantly seen" and that Weiner arrived at a method of composing that employed "these seen elements exclusively." Goldman also provides the insight that "Weiner let no representation of herself circulate that did not take her status as a clairvoyant into account." She influenced a number of the

language poets The Language poets (or ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' poets, after the magazine of that name) are an avant-garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Bernadette Mayer, Leslie Scalapi ...

and was included in the ''In the American Tree'' anthology of Language poetry (edited by

Ron Silliman Ron Silliman (born August 5, 1946) is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wr ...

). Beginning with ''Little Books/Indians'' (1980) and ''Spoke'' (1984) Weiner's work engaged with Native American politics, particularly the

American Indian Movement The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a Native American grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police ...

and the case of imprisoned activist

Leonard Peltier Leonard Peltier (born September 12, 1944) is a Native American activist and militant member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) who, following a controversial trial, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of two Fed ...

. Interest in Weiner continues into the 21st century with the recent publication of ''Hannah Weiner’s Open House'' (2007), "a representative selection spanning her decades of poetic output" This volume was edited by Patrick F. Durgin, who provides an overview of Weiner's art:

Bibliography

Published work *Magritte Poems (Written 1966, Published 1970) *The Code Poems (Written 1968, Published 1982) *The Fast (Written 1970, Published 1992) *Clairvoyant Journal March–June Retreat (Written 1974, Published 1978) *New Wilderness Augiographics Cassette # NWAG 7710 - Readings from Clairvoyant Journals *Little Books/Indians (Written 1977–1980, Published 1980) *Nijole's House (Written 1980, Published 1981) *Spoke (Written 1981, Published 1984) *Sixteen (Written 1982, Published 1983) *Written In/The Zero One (Written 1984, Published 1985) *Weeks (Written 1986, Published 1990) *Silent Teachers/Remembered Sequel (Written 1989–91, Published 1993) *Page (Written 1990, Published 2002) *We Speak Silent (Written 1993–4, Published 1997) *Hannah Weiner's Open House (Published 2007) Unpublished Manuscripts *Country Girl (Written 1971) *Pictures and Early Words (Written 1972) *Big Words (Written 1973) *Clairvoyant Journal January–February, July–November (Written 1974) *Little Girl Books (Written 1976) *Abazoo (Written 1988) *Seen Words with It (Written 1989) *The Book of Revelations (Written 1989) *Visions and Silent Musicians (Written 1992)

References

External links

Hannah Weiner at EPC
*

Little Books/Indians
by Hannah Weiner

discusses ''Hannah Weiner’s Open House'' (2007)
Tom Donovan
on ''Open House''
''Open House'' launch
video {{DEFAULTSORT:Weiner, Hannah 1928 births 1997 deaths American women poets Language poets Jewish American writers Jewish feminists Jewish poets People with schizophrenia Radcliffe College alumni Writers from Providence, Rhode Island 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers Classical High School alumni 20th-century American Jews