TO WITNESS COMMITMENT IS TO BE INSPIRED

... and so I'm reading THE GRAND PIANO by reading one poet at a time through his/her contributions in the series' ten volumes. The idea is, if I'm moved to do so after the individual reads, to then compare this type of reading with reading each volume as published in order to determine the significance of "collective autobiography," the terms upon which the project presents itself to the world. The sixth poet I read (after Lyn Hejinian, Ron Silliman, Tom Mandel, Bob Perelman and Kit Robinson) is Carla Harryman...

...whose contribution is educationally dense and admirable in its articulation of Commitment with a capital "C."

So  many details and so little time, and after all this isn't a professional review so I apologize by begging off with explications of my admiration.  However, I will note how I found interesting the tension between her at-times reluctance in writing for something like THE GRAND PIANO and the actual writing results which seem to have come up helplessly, at times, as urgently demanded by her subjects.  I suspect this is a person who believes, if one's going to do something, one needs to do it well (or as well as one can).  Bow.