Cart
Free US shipping over $10
Proud to be B-Corp

Under Albany Ron Silliman

Under Albany By Ron Silliman

Under Albany by Ron Silliman


$21.99
Condition - Very Good
Only 1 left

Summary

Small Press Traffic Book of the Year 2004. This memoir provides an exquisitely rich exploration of the relation of context to reference, subtext to meaning, back story to presented experience, and composition to poetics. Silliman's work unravels and reforms in this exemplary and exhilarating act of attention and reflection.

Under Albany Summary

Under Albany by Ron Silliman

Small Press Traffic Book of the Year 2004. This memoir provides an exquisitely rich exploration of the relation of context to reference, subtext to meaning, back story to presented experience, and composition to poetics. All of Silliman's work unravels and reforms in this exemplary and exhilarating act of attention, recollection, and reflection.

Under Albany Reviews

Ron Silliman's latest book, Under Albany (Salt Publishing, 2004), is a brilliant series of autobiographical, deep background vignettes that explicate - no, enrich each of the 100 sentences of his 1981 poem Albany. It is detailed, moving, exasperating, romantic, heartfelt and delicious. For anyone interested in recent literary history and leftist politics, this is a must read.

-- Tom Beckett * Unprotected Texts *

Under Albany shows us that Albany, a representative of Silliman's characteristically language-centered work, is not a product of random language, chance operation, or chaos, a charge often directed at writing like this. Rather, it is a profoundly complex exploration of the mind and emotion that is directly connected to the world and experience from which it emerges.

-- Mark Tursi * Rain Taxi *

About Ron Silliman

Ron Silliman has written and edited 24 books of poetry and criticism to date, including the anthology In the American Tree. He lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania, with his wife and two sons, and works as a market analyst in the computer industry. Since 1979, Silliman has been writing a poem entitled The Alphabet. Volumes published thus far from that project have included ABC, Demo to Ink, Jones, Lit, Manifest, N/O, Paradise, (R), Toner, What and Xing.

Table of Contents

  • If the function of writing is to express the world. My father withheld child support, forcing my mother to live with her parents, my brother and I to be raised together in a small room. Grandfather called them niggers. I can't afford an automobile. Far across the calm bay stood a complex of long yellow buildings, a prison. A line is the distance between. They circled the seafood restaurant, singing We shall not be moved. My turn to cook. It was hard to adjust my sleeping to those hours when the sun was up. The event was nothing like their report of it. How concerned was I over her failure to have orgasms? Mondale's speech was drowned by jeers. Ye wretched. She introduces herself as a rape survivor. Yet his best friend was Hispanic. I decided not to escape to Canada. Revenue enhancement. Competition and spectacle, kinds of drugs. If it demonstrates form some people won't read it. Television unifies conversation. Died in action. If a man is a player, he will have no job. Becoming prepared to live with less space. Live ammunition. Secondary boycott. My crime is parole violation. Now that the piecards have control. Rubin feared McClure would read Ghost Tantras at the teach-in. This form is the study group. The sparts are impeccable, though filled with deceit. A benefit reading. He seduced me. AFT, local 1352. Enslavement is permitted as punishment for crime. Her husband broke both of her eardrums. I used my grant to fix my teeth. They speak in Farsi at the corner store. YPSL. The national question. I look forward to old age with some excitement. 42 years for Fibreboard Products. Food is a weapon. Yet the sight of people making love is deeply moving. Music is essential. The cops wear shields that serve as masks. Her lungs heavy with asbestos. Two weeks too old to collect orphan's benefits. A woman on the train asks Angela Davis for an autograph. You get read your Miranda. As if a correct line would somehow solve the future. They murdered his parents just to make the point. It's not easy if your audience doesn't identify as readers. Mastectomies are done by men. Our pets live at whim. Net income is down 13%. Those distant sirens down in the valley signal great hinges in the lives of strangers. A phone tree. The landlord's control of terror is implicit. Not just a party but a culture. Copayment. He held the Magnum with both hands and ordered me to stop. The garden is a luxury (a civilization of snail and spider). They call their clubs batons. They call their committees clubs. Her friendships with women are different. Talking so much is oppressive. Outplacement. A shadowy locked facility using drugs and double-celling (a rest home). That was the Sunday Henry's father murdered his wife on the front porch. If it demonstrates form they can't read it. If it demonstrates mercy they have something worse in mind. Twice, carelessness has led to abortion. To own a basement. Nor is the sky any less constructed. The design of a department store is intended to leave you fragmented, off-balance. A lit drop. They photograph Habermas to hide the hairlip. The verb to be admits the assertion. The body is a prison, a garden. In kind. Client populations (cross the tundra). Off the books. The whole neighborhood is empty in the daytime. Children form lines at the end of each recess. Eminent domain. Rotating chair. The history of Poland in 90 seconds. Flaming pintos. There is no such place as the economy, the self. That bird demonstrates the sky. Our home, we were told, had been broken, but who were these people we lived with? Clubbed in the stomach, she miscarried. There were bayonets on campus, cows in India, people shoplifting books. I just want to make it to lunch time. Uncritical of nationalist movements in the Third World. Letting the dishes sit for a week. Macho culture of convicts. With a shotgun and in defense the officer shot him in the face. Here, for a moment, we are joined. The want-ads lie strewn on the table.

Additional information

GOR009525725
9781844710515
1844710513
Under Albany by Ron Silliman
Used - Very Good
Paperback
Salt Publishing
2004-11-01
116
Winner of Small Press Book Award 2004
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Under Albany