Leslie Scalapino was an American poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets.
11 Facts About Leslie Scalapino
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Leslie Scalapino was born in Santa Barbara, California and raised in Berkeley.
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Leslie Scalapino traveled throughout her youth and adulthood to Asia, Africa and Europe and her writing was intensely influenced by these experiences.
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In childhood Scalapino traveled with her father Robert A Scalapino, her mother, and her two sisters.
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Leslie Scalapino published her first book O and Other Poems in 1976.
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Leslie Scalapino's poetry has been widely anthologized, including appearances in the influential Postmodern American Poetry, From the Other Side of the Century, and Poems for the Millennium anthologies, as well as the popular Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize series anthologies.
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Leslie Scalapino's work was the subject of a special "critical feature" appearing in an issue of the online poetry journal How2.
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From 1986 until 2010, Leslie Scalapino ran the Oakland small press she founded, O Books.
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Leslie Scalapino taught writing at various institutions, including 16 years in the MFA program at Bard College.
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Leslie Scalapino had close ties to writers of the Beat movement, especially with those whose serious study of Buddhism influenced their writing and their vision of an ethical world.
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Leslie Scalapino belonged to no school; her engagement with continual conceptual rebellion would have prohibited that.