From the Publisher
LESLIE SCALAPINO is author of numerous books of poetry, essays, and plays, as well as the novel Defoe (1994). Wesleyan has published her most recent books: The Public World / Syntactically Impermanence and The Front Matter, Dead Souls (1996). --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"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 one –– 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." (Robert Creeley)
“Great writers-Blake, Whitman, Dickenson, Joyce, Stein, Zukofsky, Ginsberg, Keruac, even Pound-re-envision the present. Literally, the present tense. In our time, New Time, it is Leslie Scalapino who most fully articulates the constantly changing meaning(s) of now. This crystalline epic may be Scalapino’s most ‘accessible’ book yet, but its surfaces perpetually peel back to reveal a further that could never have existed before, nor in any other way. ‘This is eternity,’ Olson once wrote. You bet.” (Ron Silliman) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
paper 0-8195-6356-0 Abstract verse revolving around the inner thoughts and intimations of a poet and novelist (Defoe, 1994, not reviewed) whose faith in the avant-garde appears fully intact. Experimental verse has become so old-hat that the term can hardly be used with a straight face any longer, but Scalapino brings a certain fresh innocence to her efforts thats at once touching and brave. Dispensing almost entirely with narrative, she uses images quite sparingly and relies upon highly recondite interior perceptions (if the nature of this is struggling wall of birds flying that (arent) on their own. if were not going to do this with people there isnt any existence) to animate her work, which in its essence is about as coherentand as hauntingas a febrile dream. Although the authors recollections of Japan and her daily routines in Berkeley feed her pronouncements (being in tradition is not being a corpse / (here), Kyoto with the river running through it), this is not an account of any particular placeor an account at all, for that matter. As the poet observes early on, The writing is not narrative telling the story or stories of events. Rather it is movements, a movement that was a real event where all is fictional as phenomena. So history is scrutinized by phenomena, observed as minute, particularand thus fictive as haphazard moving. Haphazard, certainly, and frustrating as well (in its apparent lack of focus), Scalapinos work is not without its rewards of austere grace and harsh clarity. But these dont come without hard effort on the readers part. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. 
