The Grand Piano
San Francisco 1975–80

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Some Responses to The Grand Piano...


Une expérience vraiment captivante.... — Alain Cressan

The Grand Piano continues to amaze & cast shadows of lyric mortality & recuperation; the thrill is definitely not gone & this project to me is immensely profound & evocative of a very unique moment (gathering further momentum) & I am grateful to all of you for sharing such a rich history. — David Meltzer

I’ve loved all the Grand Pianos in the way I love all autobiographies, where nostalgia and history nuzzle and fuse. Lots of solid poetic information, but I’m guilty of treating each installment as economic porno — a fantasy of the Bay Area and surrounding U.S. before Reagan, tech, the homeless, home prices, and unbridled free markets turned it into the diminished but still beautiful Bohemia I knew, 1986-2006. Folks, we missed the party, but its structure was against us, and there’s tactical comfort in that. — Rodney Koeneke, on GoodReads.

A vital contribution... relevant to any thoughtful analysis of the place of poetry writing and production today. — James Sherry, Jacket 34

The Grand Piano ... is a veering off and an investigation and a playing or experimenting with the materials of language, history, textuality and temporality, the personal and political, poetry and community... a project that participates in the articulation of its own accounting for literary posterity.... There is an abundance to linger over in The Grand Piano. — Robin Tremblay-McGaw, How2

This small verbal token seems like a passport, an efficient and elegant key to another world where literary idealism and integrity still command respect. — Maria Damon, Rain Taxi Review of Books

obsessively readable — Mark Scroggins

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

Does the book feel a little like a soap opera?... Aren’t all autobiographies soap operas? ... Am I looking forward to the next installment? Hell yeah! — Nada Gordon

...collective autobiographers ...using the narratives of their history... to nurture an arena of possibilities where ideas can be exchanged. — Rob Fitterman

Links

Burt, Stephen. ode-y et emo (on the Grand Piano 5). Harriet - a blog from the poetry foundation, (28 January 2008).

Bushnell, Jeremy P. Review of The Grand Piano 1 and other recent books. raccoon : notes and scavengings, (18 August 2007).

Chirot, David-Baptiste. "Parole in Liberace: the "Grand Piano" & its accessories-necessaries. Site--Sight--Cite ******* Visual--Sonic-- Visceral Poetries (25 July 2007).

_________. More on: "Parole in Liberace: the "Grand Piano" & its accessories-necessaries. Site--Sight--Cite ******* Visual--Sonic-- Visceral Poetries (11 September 2007).

Cressan, Alain. Piano. L'ombre d'une ville, (16 September 2009).

Damon, Maria. Review of The Grand Piano. Rain Taxi 12, no.1 (print edition; Spring 2007).

Damon, Maria. Three Ladies, Three Bodies, Three Poets: A Retro-Neo/phytic Semi-yessay. EOAGH: A Journal of the Arts 4 (2007).

Filreis, Al. "playing The Grand Piano." Al Filreis blog (18 August 2007).

Filreis, Al. "He's plainly and simply thankful for friends." Al Filreis blog (24 November 2007).

Gardner, Drew. "The Grand Piano1." Overlap (15 April 2007).

Gordon, Nada. "Questions that occurred to me on a first reading of The Grand Piano" and other posts. Ululations (March 2007).

Gricevich, Andy. "On the Grand Piano, part 4". Ululations (March 2007).

Marcinkowski, Marc. "On the Grand Piano". Developing Poetics (various dates).

Nicoloff, Michael. "On the Grand Piano". I am yer grammar (December 9, 2006 & January 14, 2007).

Schlesinger, Kyle. "The Grand Piano". Cuneiform Press blog (30 January 2008).

Scroggins, Mark. "The Grand Piano, part 1" and "The Toy Piano." (5 April, 11 April 2007).

Sherry, James. "The Ten-Tone Scale." Jacket 32 (April 2007)

_________. "How Events Really Work." Jacket 32 (April 2007).

_________. "Language Poetry by the Bay." Jacket 34 (October 2007).

_________. "Language Poetry by the Bay." Jacket 35 (Early 2008).

Silliman, Daniel. "Grand Piano and Other Phrases." 20 June 2003.

Silliman, Ron. "All posts on the Grand Piano." Silliman's blog.

Spahr, Juliana. Posts on The Grand Piano. Swoonrocket (March 2007; November-December 2006; November 2004).

Sullivan, Gary. "The Grand Piano, part 1" and other posts. Elsewhere (16 March 2007).

Watten, Barrett. "First Response: The Grand Piano." Posts (November 2006).

_________. "How The Grand Piano is being written" Posts (May 2007).

Young, Stephanie. Post on The Grand Piano, part 2. The Well Nourished Moon (6 March 2007).

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