Scalapino's alternative ways of seeing

Critchley, Emily (2010) Scalapino's alternative ways of seeing. Delicious Hem.

PDF (Tribute to Leslie Scalapino) - Published Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (194kB)

Abstract

Leslie Scalapino’s multi-genre, highly experimental writing fiercely resists categorisations. Though most often associated with the West Coast contingent of the Language poetry movement, Scalapino herself was always suspicious of social and political groupings in which hierarchies formed – of which she felt the Language movement to be an example. From the appearance of her first published collection, O
and Other Poems, Scalapino’s writing exhibited the desire to move beyond the binary categorisations and attendant aspects of hierarchical categorization embedded in Western rationalistic thought which, her work points out, dominate contemporary living in a pervasive, if virtually unseen fashion: ‘Invisible, not that they’re not real, actions occur so that one’s seeing has to change to be realistic.’

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