Literary Nonfiction. Biography and Memoir. Part Eight in the ongoing series of collective autobiography, THE GRAND PIANO: PART 8 continues to mark the events, movements and intersections among ten contributing 1970s Language poets. "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.

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.