Media — Audio – Photos
The Grand Piano in Orono
Grand Piano authors Barrett Watten, Steve Benson and Kit Robinson perform in June 2008 at Poetry in the 1970s held at the University of Maine, Orono. The reading starts at about the 3 minute mark after an introduction by Lytle Shaw. More on the conference, including links to many photos, here. If you prefer you may download the audio file.
photo: Tom Orange
The Grand Piano in Detroit
In October 2008, seven Grand Piano authors gave a performance from the work at Detroit's College for Creative Studies. In addition to Detroit residents Carla Harryman and Barrett Watten who organized the event, Steve Benson, Lyn Hejinian, Tom Mandel, Ted Pearson and Kit Robinson took part. Pictured below, from left to right, are Ted, Steve, Carla, Tom, Barrett, Lyn and Kit.
Barrett starts things off with a short introduction that brings home the relationship between The Grand Piano and contemporaneous art movements in Detroit and discusses some issues of Grand Piano compositional process. The brief comments that follow are by Tom Mandel and Carla Harryman.
After Barrett's introduction, the reading itself begins. Moving through individual sections and a variety of duet overlaps, the performance reaches a crescendo with all seven performers going at it at once — to their and the audience's delight.
Photos
Bay Area Poetry Readings: the Bay Area boasted an extremely active schedule of poetry readings in the second half of the nineteen seventies — several readings a week as often as not. We chronicle both the Grand Piano readings as well as other events for which we have been able to find documentation.
- Grand Piano flyers
- Flyers from other readings — to come
more
With this archive, we hope to help create as complete a record as possible of the Bay Area experimental writing scene 1975-80. Please if you can add to or improve any materials on these pages.