Leslie Scalapino's writing takes place in the fickle, monumental and often beautiful present: now. (If there were no present tense, her writing alone would have invented and identified it.) But it expands back and forth, pumping like a systole, into the primitive past and the unimaginable future. We in the Bay Area are spoiled, for we get to have Leslie Scalapino with us almost all the time. An outstanding performer and playwright, she is the author of many books, including the recent Green and Black: Selected Poems (Talisman House Books).

September 26, 1997