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The Front Matter, Dead Souls
This extraordinary new book is essay-fiction-poetry, an experiment in form, "a serial novel for publication in the newspaper" that collapses the distinction between documentary and fiction.
Leslie Scalapino is widely regarded as one of the best avant-garde writers in America today. This extraordinary new book is essay-fiction-poetry, an experiment in form, "a serial novel for publication in the newspaper" that collapses the distinction between documentary and fiction. Loosely set in Los Angeles, the book scrutinizes our image-making, producing extreme and vivid images-hyena, Muscle Beach in Venice, the Supreme Court, subway rides-in order for them to be real. Countering contemporary trends toward interiority, Scalapino's work constitutes a unique effort to "be" objectively in the world. The writing is an action, a dynamic push to make intimacy in the public realm. She does not distinguish between poetry and "real events": her writing is analogous to Buddhist notions of dreaming one is a butterfly, and becoming aware that actually being the butterfly is as real as dreaming it.
Leslie Scalapino is widely regarded as one of the best avant-garde writers in America today. This extraordinary new book is essay-fiction-poetry, an experiment in form, "a serial novel for publication in the newspaper" that collapses the distinction between documentary and fiction. Loosely set in Los Angeles, the book scrutinizes our image-making, producing extreme and vivid images-hyena, Muscle Beach in Venice, the Supreme Court, subway rides-in order for them to be real. Countering contemporary trends toward interiority, Scalapino's work constitutes a unique effort to "be" objectively in the world. The writing is an action, a dynamic push to make intimacy in the public realm. She does not distinguish between poetry and "real events": her writing is analogous to Buddhist notions of dreaming one is a butterfly, and becoming aware that actually being the butterfly is as real as dreaming it.
- GenresPoetry
103 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
About the author
Leslie Scalapino
68 books23 followersLeslie Scalapino (July 25, 1944 – May 28, 2010) was a United States poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. A longtime resident of California's Bay Area, she earned an M.A. in English from the University of California at Berkeley. One of Scalapino's most critically well-received works is way (North Point Press, 1988), a long poem which won the Poetry Center Award, the Lawrence Lipton Prize, and the American Book Award.
Scalapino was born in Santa Barbara, California and raised in Berkeley. She traveled throughout her youth and adulthood to Asia, Africa and Europe and her writing was intensely influenced by these experiences. In childhood Scalapino traveled with her father Robert A. Scalapino (founder of UC Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies), her mother, and her two sisters (Diane and Lynne). She attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon and received her B.A. in Literature in 1966 before moving on to earn her M.A. at UC Berkeley. Scalapino published her first book O and Other Poems in 1976. During her lifetime, she published more than thirty books of poetry, prose, inter-genre fiction, plays, essays, and collaborations. Other well-known works of hers include The Return of Painting, The Pearl, and Orion : A Trilogy (North Point, 1991; Talisman, 1997), Dahlia's Iris: Secret Autobiography and Fiction (FC2), Sight (a collaboration with Lyn Hejinian; Edge Books), and Zither & Autobiography (Wesleyan University Press).
Scalapino's poetry has been widely anthologized, including appearances in the influential Postmodern American Poetry, From the Other Side of the Century, and Poems for the Millennium anthologies, as well as the popular Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize series anthologies. Her work was the subject of a special "critical feature" appearing in an issue of the online poetry journal How2.
From 1986 until 2010, Scalapino ran the Oakland small press she founded, O Books. Scalapino taught writing at various institutions, including 16 years in the MFA program at Bard College. Other schools she taught at over the years included Mills College, the San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, San Francisco State University, UC San Diego, and Naropa University.
(from Wikipedia)
Scalapino was born in Santa Barbara, California and raised in Berkeley. She traveled throughout her youth and adulthood to Asia, Africa and Europe and her writing was intensely influenced by these experiences. In childhood Scalapino traveled with her father Robert A. Scalapino (founder of UC Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies), her mother, and her two sisters (Diane and Lynne). She attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon and received her B.A. in Literature in 1966 before moving on to earn her M.A. at UC Berkeley. Scalapino published her first book O and Other Poems in 1976. During her lifetime, she published more than thirty books of poetry, prose, inter-genre fiction, plays, essays, and collaborations. Other well-known works of hers include The Return of Painting, The Pearl, and Orion : A Trilogy (North Point, 1991; Talisman, 1997), Dahlia's Iris: Secret Autobiography and Fiction (FC2), Sight (a collaboration with Lyn Hejinian; Edge Books), and Zither & Autobiography (Wesleyan University Press).
Scalapino's poetry has been widely anthologized, including appearances in the influential Postmodern American Poetry, From the Other Side of the Century, and Poems for the Millennium anthologies, as well as the popular Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize series anthologies. Her work was the subject of a special "critical feature" appearing in an issue of the online poetry journal How2.
From 1986 until 2010, Scalapino ran the Oakland small press she founded, O Books. Scalapino taught writing at various institutions, including 16 years in the MFA program at Bard College. Other schools she taught at over the years included Mills College, the San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, San Francisco State University, UC San Diego, and Naropa University.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 26, 2010
Leslie Scalapino is very kind in that she explains what she's trying to do with this text within the text.
"Movement (or shape in writing) is a knowledge that isn't thinking per se. One's thinking by itself is movement that is knowledge.
In a poem I wrote, way, I wanted compassion objectively to be in the moving shape there, as the form in the series-- pressed in its moving of shape in the real events. It occurs not subject to one and outside of one.
I was trying to get a shape, which is in some way a sound, that's movement in location, and is also compassion by itself (objectively) occurring (not imposed) in these locations.
The writing is the minute moving or shape of a real event. Sentiment has no relation to existence. It isn't an act?
One is to be divided from one's natural mind as if that were inferior here.
That we are to conform per se, is what would not be ugly, be alone
Where in the minute shape of a sole event one is there-- but not in the entire series subject only to its own moving-- where one is doesn't exist.
Here I resemble the real events without a recurring moment as their articulation in language. It's just out there."
Besides the mind-mushing metaphysical and philosophical statements, the volume is full of very beautifully written events/actions existing continuously in the present.
"Movement (or shape in writing) is a knowledge that isn't thinking per se. One's thinking by itself is movement that is knowledge.
In a poem I wrote, way, I wanted compassion objectively to be in the moving shape there, as the form in the series-- pressed in its moving of shape in the real events. It occurs not subject to one and outside of one.
I was trying to get a shape, which is in some way a sound, that's movement in location, and is also compassion by itself (objectively) occurring (not imposed) in these locations.
The writing is the minute moving or shape of a real event. Sentiment has no relation to existence. It isn't an act?
One is to be divided from one's natural mind as if that were inferior here.
That we are to conform per se, is what would not be ugly, be alone
Where in the minute shape of a sole event one is there-- but not in the entire series subject only to its own moving-- where one is doesn't exist.
Here I resemble the real events without a recurring moment as their articulation in language. It's just out there."
Besides the mind-mushing metaphysical and philosophical statements, the volume is full of very beautifully written events/actions existing continuously in the present.
January 25, 2018
A review is only a view. Something to be seen. To have occurred is what has happened here and has been seen and viewed. Scalapino = excelling if not excellence as even in death there is more occurring as sight can be reseen in memories occurring. What is thought or dreaming and what is reality?
August 20, 2007
More evidence that the majority of language poets are a waste of paper.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews