13 Facts About Ron Silliman

Ron Silliman was born on August 5,1946 and is an American poet.

Ron Silliman has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages.

Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wrote a single poem, The Alphabet.

Ron Silliman lived in the San Francisco Bay area for more than 40 years.

Ron Silliman classifies his poetry as part of a lifework, which he calls Ketjak, a name refers to a form of Balinese dance drama based on an ancient text.

In 1995 Ron Silliman moved to Chester County, Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife Krishna and two sons.

Ron Silliman thought that such early acceptance was less a recognition of his skills than a lack of standards or rigor characteristic of that literary tendency; he began looking for alternatives.

One of the more influential projects was Ron Silliman's newsletter called Tottels, that was one of the early venues for Language Poetry.

Ron Silliman says that "The Dwelling Place," a feature article on nine poets published in Alcheringa, was his "first attempt to write about language poetry".

Ron Silliman began to give talks and contribute essays on a regular basis thereafter.

In 2012, Ron Silliman was one of three Kelly Writers House Fellows at the University of Pennsylvania, together with Karen Finley and John Barth.

Ron Silliman was a 2003 Literary fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2002 Fellow of the Pennsylvania Arts Council, as well as a PEW Fellow in the Arts in 1998.

Ron Silliman is memorialized in the Addison Anthology, a sidewalk portion in Berkeley, California containing plaques honoring poets and authors.