Would it be possible to compose a book that appears to be "about" its author, but is indirectly about something else, like identity or relationships or language? Maybe a book not written by a hero... but by many?
This was the challenge taken up by Kevin McPherson Eckhoff in his fourth book, their biography: an organism of relationships. This collaborative memoir collages together word-portraits from friends, family, coworkers, strangers, robots, and even adversaries in order to create a silhouette of not a single person, but of the manacles that connect people to one another.
their biography is meant to make people think--it's broad array of voices and poetic/prosaic forms disturbs comfortable patterns of reading, and its subject is as much about the contributors as the author. Eclectic and desolate, confessional and dubious, this record of relationships defies authorship, biography, and individualism.
Fans of Gregory Betts's "Facebook Poem Project" or Rachel Zolf's Tolerance Project, along with anyone compelled by contemporary poetry and conceptual art, will connect with this pixelated investigation into identity, and the true meaning of 'self' as we and others define it.
