Crowd and not evening or light

Description: 1992, 104 pages.
Poetry and poems that are plays which open a terrain of action which is stillness and turmoil together on the written page. The title sequence is phrases to photographs taken by the author as if photographing the inside of dense phenomenal existence floating, which is intended to be just looking at vast space inha- bited. The flatness and stillness of the crowds seen standing in water are reflected back in the written text. Susan Howe comments "Leslie Scalapino is a stunningly original writer. Poised on an edge between space and claustrophobia, this poet bears stark witness to the broken narratives of thousands dead or off shore. Crowd and not evening or light scatters literary criticism, dra- ma and the photographic index across a wilderness of everyday language like love."

Lyn Hejinian Comments "... a work in phrases and photographs, in which the stasis (formulation) and movement (extension) of thought as reflection (hence the aptness of the photographs) is beautifully displayed.

From ^ "Leg (a play)"

not returning – without there being

anything for them – long times spent

isolated – but wrestling miserably without comprehending

it – but there being love between men and

women – for one thing – not from parents

it’s sort of pushed out

the other side – from such

being serene – but not comprehending

anything about it – having to go down the street to

try to be calm – and separately,

the couples – strolling – there only being love

between men and women

woman – in cart

but then killed for some

reason – by the men shouting

spitting – rubbed with shit – the women having been enslaved after

the war, the men dead – suffering, brutalizing

– humiliated, all of them – the

woman in the cart – as some forgotten

woman – carried off, separated from

the others – their crying to her – some dying

jumping

not concentrating on certain wrongs – not having anything

to return to – savage – people who may go after

– others – in the street – so frightened –

and suffering as not the sense of custom or wanting

that

people finding out what

they are – because they don’t have any

custom any longer – we don’t

not from suffering – though going on

or their finding out, the women having been enslaved

the men dead – custom – suffering

made to be that

children – outside

all crying, as some

game – at once – like birds, or for some

occasion – whaa – hear

from an

apartment – city

not rowers – not written – seen – as being

the bourgeoisie – from a

mentality – not ours

warriors – rowers – on the

blue – sea

– of – rowers

men – on the –

sea – ours – as not

to return to that – more inactive

taking a longer time – and

blue

men – with

chains – in subway

threat – who

are either inactive

as that

the same – as – the

action – rowers – on

the blue – stowaway – being

rowed to the other, freighter –

not from that

not to return to

stowaway, falling in – when

being in the rowboat – going – to the other

freighter – or warriors – rowers – on

the – blue – ocean

man

with blue hair – some

shaved – ear

rings – nose ring

in subway – from

city – hear

man

with shaved hair

chains – come in

– subway – as finding out

– suffering – of them – or from– whether

– city – that is

not to return to

the mood – theirs – of people who

happened – to be strolling – embracing

in light – when I was coming to them –

again – as – struggling

which isn’t – their, the couples

– seen – strolling – an

indication of anything – my – and wouldn’t

or wasn’t thought to

be such

not in that –

though it is –

and – held to it

to a man fast

asleep

in subway car

– out

sun – driver

of taxi hailing me – who’s walking,

I must look like – someone – who needs – or

would – take – or wants

a taxi

making jokes

out

– not in that

view

though it is