Image from Clairvoyant Journal, Hannah Weiner, 1974
Hannah Weiner was born on November 4, 1928, in Providence, Rhode Island, and graduated from Providence Classical High School in June 1946. She attended Radcliffe College and graduated with a B.A., magna cum laude, in English Literature in 1950. After a brief marriage, she took various jobs in New York City, and began writing poetry around 1963. Her first book, The Magritte Poems, was published in 1966. In the late 60s, Weiner participated in several events within the visual arts scene in New York City. Her most notable “poetry event” was the International Code of Signals. In the early 70s, she commenced her primary body of written work, a series of experimental journals which were in part “clairvoyantly” dictated. I See Words became both her manifesto and method of composition.
Weiner's Clairvoyant Journal 1974 was published by Angel Hair Books in 1978, followed by LittleBooks/Indians (Roof Books, 1980) and Nijole’s House (Potes and Poets, 1981). She became one of the most prominent individuals involved with the “language-centered” movement of poets and experimental prose writers. Her work was featured in Ron Silliman’s anthology, In the American Tree, Douglas Messerli's Language Poetries, and The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book, edited by Charles Bernstein and Bruce Andrews. She was awarded a creative writing fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1986. Other important collections of her poetry include Spoke (Sun & Moon Press, 1984), The Fast (United Artists Books, 1992), Silent Teachers Remembered Sequel (Tender Button, 1994), and We Speak Silent (Roof Books, 1996). Weiner’s manuscript Page, as well as selections from her Clairvoyant Journal and Little Books/Indians have been published posthumously by various presses.
The papers of Hannah Weiner held at UC San Diego, covering the years 1946-2002, contain notebooks, typescripts of poems, prose works, typed transcriptions of notebooks, audiorecordings, and miscellaneous materials. Included are materials for Clairvoyant Journals 1974: March - June Retreat (1978), Code Poems: From the International Code of Signals for the Use of All (1982), The Fast (1992), The Magritte Poems (1970), and Spoke (1984).
The Clairvoyant Journals and Book of Revelations have been digitized and are available through the libraries Digital Collections site.
