Synopses & Reviews
Literary Nonfiction. Biography and Memoir. Part Nine in the ongoing series of collective autobiography, THE GRAND PIANO: PART 9 continues to mark the events, movements and intersections among ten contributing 1970s Language poets. "Like the early avant-gardes, the poets who gathered at THE GRAND PIANO developed not only an exacting and liberating poetics, but also a way of living-in-art. Its chronicle here is many things, among them a deeply human and amusing map to building community through literature in this most unlikely of times"--Cole Swensen.
About the Author
THE GRAND PIANO is an experiment in collective autobiography by ten writers identified with the rise of Language poetry in San Francisco--Rae Armantrout, Steve Benson, Carla Harryman, Lyn Hejinian, Tom Mandel, Ted Pearson, Bob Perelman, Kit Robinson, Ron Silliman, and Barrett Watten. The eleventh pianist, Alan Bernheimer, takes the lead in organizing documentation for the books. THE GRAND PIANO takes its name from a coffeehouse at 1607 Haight Street in San Francisco where from 1976 to 1979 several of writers programmed and coordinated--and all of them participated in a weekly reading and performance series. The project focuses on the 1970s when they first met and collaborated. Yet the volumes engage issues beyond that time, and the project adheres to no prescribed set of themes.