Writing as Event!
THE GRAND PIANO, Part 6
An Experiment in Collective Autobiography
San Francisco, 1975-1980
By Ron Silliman, Steve Benson, Bob Perelman, Kit Robinson, Barrett Watten, Lyn Hejinian, Carla Harryman, Rae Armantrout, Ted Pearson, and Tom Mandel.
"A vital contribution to the collective memory of the poetry of that period.... The relationship of the individual to the society and its intermediate institutions, such as the Grand Piano readings, is relevant to any thoughtful analysis of the place of poetry writing and production today."
—James Sherry, Jacket 34
"The collective autobiographers are less interested in revising the past and more interested in using the narratives of their history to further contextualize the complex poetics and communal history of that poetics for the future...to nurture an arena of possibilities where ideas can be exchanged."
—Rob Fitterman, “Futuring The Grand Piano”
"The Grand Piano is itself 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.... There is an abundance to linger over in The Grand Piano even as and perhaps because of the large gaps and contradictions."
—Robin Tremblay-McGaw, How2
Copies of single volumes may be ordered from Small Press Distribution
Subscriptions to The Grand Piano (ten volumes, at quarterly intervals, beginning with parts 1–6), are available; Send order form and check for $90 made out to Lyn Hejinian, 2639 Russell Street, Berkeley, CA 94705. Partial subscriptions starting from no. 2 are $80; from no. 3, for $70; from no. 4, for $60, from no. 5, $50; from no. 6, $40, etc.
Order forms may be downloaded here: color or b&w
Designed and published by Barrett Watten, Mode A/This Press (
