kultureflash

POEM OF THE WEEK #20

Leslie Scalapino

Leslie Scalapino is arguably the most influential American poet after Ashbery and, as Laura Hinton puts it, "heir to American versions of surrealism; to the anti-institutional poetics of the 'Beats'; to mystic American poets influenced by Asian philosophy." Following Whitman she is a poet of the long breath that typically constructs a long line, ultimately resembling prose more than it does traditional verse -- and in fact her fiction is distinguished only by a nuance from her poetry -- but following Gertrude Stein her work is analytical in texture and serial in structure. Among her many books are Dahlia's Iris -- Secret Autobiography and Fiction (FC2, 2003), Zither & Autobiography (Wesleyan University Press, 2003), and R-hu (Atelos, 2002).

From: Day Ocean State of Stars' Night

woman says her intent
[as: given— of her]
is pleasure
while 'we're' bombing
Afghanistan then
—and says that [any] suffering
depersonalizes that
one then
[whoever/them]

woman
/friend says I don't
have
disagreement when one's
saying one's being
attacked by
man/friend [who attack others]. the
woman says there is no self
in, that is, pleasure—or no self in,
her. there.

their
suffering [meaning
a self] [as
not
apprehend]
yet [she says] depersonalized is
one is
outside
[social to her]
acceptance—outside
being

flying singing
swallows birds
above in
a lit evening
[which is] invisible from singing
beside alongside that child
[spoken of, not there]—an evening or in its next
early day [not there]
are not
higher in
space
than their
[birds] start early evening
then
evenings' early day
one
from them
[many] evenings'
s' one early day.

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