Since the 1970s Lyn Hejinian has produced a prolific array of cross-genre poetry, poetic prose and poetics that investigate mutually constitutive relationships, including: interplays between poetic, critical and philosophical languages; the nature of perceptual encounters between subject and object; and interrelations between the writer and her context, including her own intellectual background. She has always been concerned with both the ‘motivated coincidence[s]’ as well as differences within the various literary communities she has inhabited, especially those of Language poetry and the Russian avant-garde. In Hejinian’s words: ‘To trace the lines of reciprocity through which [meaningfulness and meaning . . .] are established is to map a social space, a community.’ Her writing often bears witness to specific occasions that prompted literary activity within these communities, such as readings, talks, calls for papers, translations, and so on, as well as the people with whom she has collaborated or for whom she has written.