New Time

Time spent in Japan, and everyday life in Berkeley and Oakland, come together as a kaleidoscope of words and consciousness in New Time. Leslie Scalapino pushes at the edges / spatial shape of language and experience in her new collection by writing that is itself events, which are to "punch a hole in reality." Real events, occurring in real time, are transformed in the act of writing them as perceived rather than interpreted. Phrases repeat, conjoin, break apart, and return in this challenging and innovative work, as Scalapino moves toward a "new time" wherein there is no 'inner' -- one's illusion that is "the adamant social being / is inner" and "the body is a new form."

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).