I have just received word that Under Albany is one of five books named “Books of the Year 2004” by Small Press Traffic in San Francisco. Others likewise named include Jeanne Heuving’s Incapacity, Christine Hume’s Alaskaphrenia, Paolo Javier’s The Time At The End of This Writing, and Kaia Sand’s Interval.

In addition, Small Press Traffic has given a Lifetime Achievement Award to Joanne Kyger, who totally deserves it. Previous Lifetime Achievement Awards have gone to Barbara Guest, Jackson Mac Low & Carl Rakosi. The SPT board also announced a “special award to a book of another order entirely” to the editors of the anthology Biting the Error: Forty Writers Explore Narrative – Mary Burger, Bob Glück, Camille Roy & Gail Scott.

Of Under Albany, the SPT press release says the following:

It may be Ron Silliman’s single most satisfying work. Under Albany lies outside of The Alphabet, Ron Silliman’s magnum opus, and yet strangely inside of it as well, as it is a free writing of each of the hundred sentences of Albany, part of the ABC volume Tuumba published 25 years ago. Under Albany reveals a new Silliman, a newish Language Poetry, and more about work and art and political action, than most other books published in 2004 all stacked together and made into shingles.

As deeply cynical as I am about awards of all kinds, there is no question that it makes all my nerve endings tingle with joy just to be mentioned in such company. My thanks to everyone involved!