Synopses & Reviews
and#147;I hesitate to introduce any such term as 'meditation' or 'reflection,' because this work is not apart from its thinking and/or composition, so to speakand#151;and that, among other things, constitutes its exceptional value. I find the whole work to be a deeply engaging preoccupation with, and articulation of, what life might be said, factually, to be. But not as a defined subject, nor even a defining oneand#151;but as one being one. That is an heroic undertaking, or rather, place in which to work/write/live. Its formal authority is as brilliant as any I know.and#8221; and#151;Robert Creeley
and#147;Leslie Scalapino's poems probe politics, memory, perception, and desire, creating hypnotically shifting coherences that take us beyond any dislocating devices into a realm of newly emerging consciousness. This work, which defies categorization, is essential for contemporary poetry.and#8221;and#151;Charles Bernstein, author of Shadowtime
and#147;Leslie Scalapino is one who is one. A solitary, an original. Hers is a religious poetry in the tradition of Edward Thomas and Emily Dickinson, of the Hindu Vedas and Do-Gen. What other way could there be for someone with a mind so electric, independent and restless except out into the space-time conundrum? Her instrument (for she is also a soul-scientist) is a light beam held by hand in the form of a pen. Because she is thoroughly modern, every moment of experience is interrupted and unstable, accompanied by introspection and sidelong glimpses at the social. The poet here is a horrified witness, a perpetual child, a sexually alert female who keeps looking back to believe what she has seen. I read these poems as they are given: line-by-line, in flashes, and then I return to read each one again. This is a superb and important contribution to philosophy, theology, psychology, and the science of knowing. To have the selection here now, to be able to see the whole trajectory in one volume, is to experience a revolutionary moment.and#8221;and#151;Fanny Howe
Review
and#8220;Scalapino is shown in this welcome overview to have developed a distinctive idiom.and#8221;
Synopsis
Internationally recognized as one of the most innovative writers in America today, Leslie Scalapino persistently challenges the boundaries of many forms in which she worksand#151;poetry, prose, plays, and more. This outstanding volume includes work from sequential and serial poems written over thirty-two years. The poems demonstrate ideas and inventions in writing, and how one writing invention leads to the next. Three series are selected from the long poem way, about which Philip Whalen said, "She makes everything take place in real time, in the light and air and night where all of us live, everything happening at once." Recent poems, such as those from "DeLay Rose," appear to leave the page itself as a single infinite line in which the actions of individuals and occurrences in the outside world are synonymous, mysterious, and simultaneous. It's go in horizontal is a dazzling entryway into the oeuvre of a daring and powerful writer.
About the Author
Leslie Scalapino teaches at Mills College and is a former faculty member at Milton Avery Graduate Program of the Arts at Bard College, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. Among her many books are Day Ocean State of Star's Night: Poems and Writings 1989 and 1999-2006, Dahlia's Iris: Secret Autobiography and Fiction, and Zither and Autobiography.
Table of Contents
Collected in Considering how exaggerated music is
From hmmmm in The Woman Who Could Read the Minds of Dogs
Instead of an Animal
From This eating and walking at the same time are associated all right
Considering how exaggerated music is
How Phenomena Appear to Unfold: Note on My Writing
that they were at the beach
From that they were at the beach and#151; aeolotropic series
A Sequence
From Chameleon Series
From The Return of Painting, The Pearl, and Orion/A Trilogy
From the Five Series Poem way, 3 Series in Sequence
Bum Series
The Floating Series
Delay Series
How Phenomena Appear to Unfold
Fin de Siand#232;cle 1
Fin de Siand#232;cle 2
Fin de Siand#232;cle 3
From Crowd and not evening or light
From New Time
From The Front Matter, Dead Souls
The Public World/Syntactically Impermanence
From Resting lightning thatand#8217;s night, Friendship
Zither and Autobiography
From Zither
From The Tango
From Itand#8217;s go in / quiet illumined grass /land
Day Ocean State of Starsand#8217; Night
From and#145;Canand#8217;tand#8217; is and#145;Nightand#8217;
From The Forest is in the Euphrates River and#151;
From DeLay Rose
Acknowledgments