With startling frankness, Under Albany lifts each "new sentence" of Silliman's Albany to show us what's underneath. The resulting paragraphs are glimpses not only into Silliman's history, but into that of our times. Each is a sensitive seismograph reconding shocks of social struggle. -- Rae Armantrout Under Albany is the shadow movement of Ron Silliman's epic of everyday life, The Alphabet. Silliman provides a set of extended, vividly etched, mostly autobiographical, meditations on the background for each of the original 100 sentences of his 1981 poem Albany. This constructivist 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. -- Charles Bernstein

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.

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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.

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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.