Ronald Silliman

Originally appearing in 1977 and now in its 11th printing, this classic collection of essays by one of the sharpest minds in American contemporary poetic thought remains Roof's best seller to date. It is a collection with rich insight into Silliman's own monumental poetical work and the writing of his peers, a book which both illuminates the concerns of the era in which it was written and radiates outward with a tremendous scope that continues to bear fruit for the contemporary reader.--Publisher description.

The New Sentence

Poetry. The Language Poets have extended the Pound-Williams tradition in American writing into new and unexpected territories, ultimately establishing themselves as the most radically experimental avant-garde on the current literary scene. This second edition anthology features the most substantial body of work by the Language Poets now available, as well as with 130 pages of theoretic statements by the poets themselves. The poets represented include Barrett Watten, Lyn Hejinian, Clark Coolidge, Susan Howe, and Bernadette Mayer, among many others.

Language, Realism, Poetry

In the American Tree

Wharf Hypothesis

Rae Armantrout

Lyn Hejinian

Others

Steve Benson

Barret Watten

Poetry. Cultural Writing. Memoir. THE GRAND PIANO 3 continues the experiment in collective autobiography begun over email by ten poets identified with Language poetry, who sought to reconnect their writing practicesand to "recall and contextualize events from the period of the late 1970s." When completed, THE GRAND PIANO will comprise ten parts, in each of which the ten authors appear in a different sequence, often responding to prompts and problems arising in the series. In this issue, the order is Steve Benson, Tom Mandel, Carla Harryman, Rae Armantrout, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, Barrett Watten, Ted Pearson, Kit Robinson, and Ron Silliman.

The Grand Piano: Part 3

Two letters from the author's ongoing poem, The Alphabet.

Non, Oz

A B C

Sitting Up, Standing, Taking Steps

Poetry. NORTHERN SOUL is the second poem in a major sequence entitled Universe, following on from REVELATOR, published by BookThug in Canada in 2013. Universe is a work that, were Ron Silliman to live long enough, would take him three centuries to complete; it is a poem of globalization and post-global poetics (an important reason for publishing several sections outside the author's native USA). NORTHERN SOUL is a book-length poem of observation and reminiscence, a kaleidoscope of impressions occasioned by visits to Lancashire, in the north-west of England, where the author has several times appeared at the Bury Text Festival; Lancashire is also home to the Northern Soul music scene--another moment of US/UK interpenetation.

Being Degree 10 of Universe

Northern Soul

Barrett Watten

THE GRAND PIANO is an ongoing experiment in collective autobiography by ten writers identified with Language poetry in San Francisco. It takes its name from a coffeehouse at 1607 Haight Street, where from 1976-79 the authors took part in a reading and performance series. The writing project, begun in 1998, was undertaken as an online collaboration, first via an interactive web site and later through a listserv. When completed, THE GRAND PIANO will comprise ten parts, in which each of the ten authors will appear in a different sequence. These poets are Bob Perelman, Barrett Watten, Steve Benson, Carla Harryman, Tom Mandel, Ron Silliman, Kit Robinson, Lyn Hejinian, Rae Armantrout, and Ted Pearson.

An Experiment in Collective Autobiography, San Francisco, 1975-1980

The Grand Piano

Set amidst the Victorian splendor of Britain's first department store, The Paradise is a rags-to-riches story of a young girl who falls in love with the intoxicating charms of the modern world. As Denise finds her feet as a lowly shop girl, she must navigate her way through power struggles, intrigues, and affairs. When the shop's dashing and reckless owner, John Moray, spots her talents, she knows she can use this opportunity to rise to great things.

Paradise

Woundwood

Ron Silliman

Toner

45 1/4 degrees of universe

Against conceptual poetry

Poetry. Ron Silliman's DEMO TO INK includes six parts of a larger work entitled The Alphabet that includes five other books. An amalgam of contradictory, perfunctory scenes and images from the urban landscape, DEMO TO INK is the result of using systematic formulas and procedures for creating poetry. Silliman's other books include Tjanting, The New Sentence, In the American Tree, and Xing.

Demo to Ink

Poetry. "Revelator" is the opening poem in a major sequence entitled Universe. It's the jumping off point for a work that, were Ron Silliman to live long enough, would take him three centuries to complete. We are hopeful. Universe is a poem of globalization and post-global poetics (an important reason for publishing this key section outside of the USA). At its core, it addresses the problem that there are only two global systems: the biosphere and capital, while every response to these global systems is invariably local. The first appearance of "Revelator" in a journal won Poetry's Levinson prize, previously given to poets such as Robert Creeley, Theodore Roethke, Geoffrey Hill, John Ashbery, Robert Duncan, Basil Bunting, William Carlos Williams, Dylan Thomas, Hart Crane, Robert Frost, and Wallace Stevens. "Called a 'thaumaturge' ('wonder-worker') by the poet Robert Duncan, Silliman has created a new kind of writing from the simplest materials ... The poet confides, describes, extols, remarks, puns, paints domestic scenes, slyly alludes, records minutiae, leaps to large statements, arouses, repeats. Through it all, a friendly, northern California sort of personality emerges."—David Melnick "What I find most striking about Silliman's sentences is that they're fun; they give pleasure in many different ways, through their wit, their allusiveness, their visuality, their phonetic texture, their descriptive precision, or their sheer unlikeliness."—Roger Gilbert "Of all the language poets, Silliman's express-line writing was and is the one that stuck to my ribs. It was so thingy, so specific, so formally radical, so hard-headed, yet witty, and now and then, in spite of itself, lyric. I liked his post-industrial music. I loved ketjak and tjanting and paradise ... And the reach—the compulsion to pull everything in."—C.D. Wright

Revelator

"Under Albany is the shadow movement of Ron Silliman's epic of everyday life, The Alphabet. Silliman provides a set of extended, vividly etched, mostly autobiographical, meditations on the background for each of the original 100 sentences of his 1981 poem Albany. This constructivist memoir provides an exquisitely rich exploration of the relation of context to reference, subtext to meaning, back story to presented experience, and composition to poetics. All of Silliman's work unravels and reforms in this exemplary and exhilarating act of attention, recollection, and reflection." --Charles Bernstein

Ronald Silliman

Books

Your next favorite book is out there