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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. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Many different meanings, many different twists
This collection of short pieces of verse involves many different references, some to objects that one would not expect a poet to know. My favorite appears on page 21 and has the title "The Past." It is

Sound
as a drum
or tight as a drum? Quick!

Is recognition
sentimental?

She never thought
when she was waiting tables
that there would be null sets.

People come first, but
categories outlast them.

She said, "If you're gonna hire
the dummies, I quit!"

She thinks
this may be one
of those waitresses here.

Someone has probably mixed up
recognition with hatred.

Is she holding
a grudge,
a séance
or a piece of bread

which she won't eat because
someone
has taken a bite of it?

The reference to null sets followed by the use of the term categories suggest that Armantrout knows something about mathematics. Since I know nothing about her, no conclusion can be reached as to whether the appearance of the two terms was an accident or deliberate due to knowledge.

This example also captures the form and structure of the other examples in the book. This is one of those books of verse that you could read many times and still not see all of the subtle meanings that are buried in the passages.

"to say / so"
This is ninth in the list of Rae Armantrout's books opposite the title page. Much seems familiar -- wry tact, a quick, glancing line, sly dreamlike stop-and-start narratives set in plain suburban circumstances -- but what seemed fresh and promising in 1978 feels indispensable now. Tourists fleeing Tomorrowland, here's a pair of eyes. I'm happy to be charmed by "one should be patient // with the present / as if with a child" but held longer by "Just reproducing it / requires / all the concentration / you are...." With an announced Selected on the way, it's good to have one more pretext for a greeting before the monuments take over the post-text view: "necessary, relative, / provisional // and a bird flicks past / leaving // the sense that one / has waved one's hand." ... Read more

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Literary Nonfiction. Biography and Memoir. Part Seven in the ongoing series of collective autobiography, THE GRAND PIANO PART SEVEN 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. Part Seven contains a great deal on music (from jazz to the Doors to the Sex Pistols), and touches on a diversity of other topics, including Poets Theater, Stendhal, AIDS, and the origins of the New Sentence. It also features a "Timeline of Book Publications Significant for the Grand Piano, 1965-1985." ... Read more

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Approx 5,5 x 8.5 paperback format. Prose Journal. ... Read more

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Contents:FIRST TIME IN PRINTAvner Mandelman: Terror .Bernard Ng: CentrifugeESSAYSNick Jans: What They Leave BehindPhilip Levine: The Shadow of the Big MadroneFICTIONPeter Bacho: The WeddingPOETRYRae Armantrout: My ProblemJoshua Clover: Modern Language Association Annual . Stories About Mecca Normal Prayer of C. Gomez IbarraBrian Knave: LX; XCIII Jane Hirshfielcl: Meeting the Light CompletelySCRIPTClaire Chafee: from Why We Have a BodyTHE WRITERS NOTEBOOKGary Snyder ... Read more

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Title: POETRY (September 2007, Volume 190, Number 5)Binding: PaperbackPublication date: 2007 Pages: ... Read more

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