[(Such Places as Memory: Poems 1953-96 )] [Author: John Hejduk] [Jun-1998]

Writing Architecture #5

by John Hejduk

The poems of John Hejduk are almost still lives of memory, sites of possessed places. They give a physical existence to the words themselves and an autobiographical dimension to the architect. This is the first comprehensive collection of Hejduk's poems to be published outside an architectural setting.

Genres: Architecture, Poetry

Paperback

First published April 28, 1998

Reviews

[Em · Rating 2 out of 5]

The poems by John Hejduk were fine, but the introduction by David Shapiro was just awful. Jargon-filled academic-speak that waffled on and tried to sound important; the work would have been stronger without it. For example:

* His last masterpieces are his most simple, yet still oracular, in the sense in which Gershom Scholem said Walter Benjamin spoke always with a grammar of revelation.

* In these elegiac houses, Hejduk discovered himself as a wild original of the American anti-sublime.

* If one challenges the normal architectural historian about the lack of subtle critique to date of this giant’s work, one usually finds that the critic is lacking in the vital synaesthetic sense that would respond to these fused exercises in spirit.

* His fecundity is principled, and these poems stand as rather condensed illuminations of a vaster terrain of building and thinking.

Sure, it's an intro to a book of poems so perhaps there's some room for pretentiousness, but it's really over-the-top.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a great poet, maybe, but interesting to see what a practitioner of another art form (architecture) does in the genre. Preface by David Shapiro.