Leslie Scalapino

Leslie Scalapino attended Reed College and received an M.A. in English from the University of California at Berkeley. Her book way (North Point Press, 1988) received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, the Poetry Center Award from San Francisco State University, and the Lawrence Lipton Prize.

Her books of poetry include Considering how exaggerated music is (1982), that they were at the beach - æolotropic series (1985), the trilogy The Return of Painting, The Pearl, and Orion (1991), and Crowd and not evening or light (1992).


Her recent publications include Defoe (Sun & Moon); a book-length essay, Objects in the Terrifying Tense / Longing from Taking Place (Roof); a play, Goya's L.A. (Potes & Poets); The Front Matter, Dead Souls (Wesleyan University Press), New Time (poems, also from Wesleyan University Press), Green and Black - Selected Writings (Talisman House Publishers, 1996), and Sight (poetry, a collaboration with Lyn Hejinian, Edge Books, 1999). A book of essays and poetic writing called The Public World / Syntactically Impermanence is due from Wesleyan in June 1999.

Leslie Scalapino has taught at the UCSD and at the Naropa Institute, and presently teaches at Bard College in New York in the MFA program and at the San Francisco Art Institute. Leslie Scalapino founded 0 Books, an experimental poetry press. She lives in Oakland, California.