Originally appearing in 1977 and now in its 11th printing, this classic collection of essays by one of the sharpest minds in American contemporary poetic thought remains Roof's best seller to date. It is a collection with rich insight into Silliman's own monumental poetical work and the writing of his peers, a book which both illuminates the concerns of the era in which it was written and radiates outward with a tremendous scope that continues to bear fruit for the contemporary reader. "Ron Silliman is a terrific prose critic...positively bristles with intellectual and political energy of a very high order." - Bruce Boone, Soup

"In Ron Silliman's important talk on 'The New Sentence,' Grammar has become...prosody." - Barbara Einzig, American Book Review

"Silliman's...most enduring influences appear to be the projectivist poets, on the one hand, and the abstract poetics of Stein, Russian Formalism, and Louis Zukofsky on the other.... Silliman offers a grand example of the crisis in verse." - Stephen Fredman, Poet's Prose

"Almost a third of the anthology The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book... is devoted to... ' Writing and Politics'.... The critique is leftist... The ongoing political analysis is multifaceted, of course, though of these writers Silliman appears to be the most articulate... " - Lee Bartlett, Critical Inquiry

"Silliman is one of our most important poets..." - Joel Lewis, Poetry Project Newsletter