WRI(GH)TE [ING] PUNCTUATION: READING LESLIE SCALAPINO

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In the poem Bright, two thirds into the book, the reader is given a chance to absorb and analyze Scalapino’s layering in a smaller, easily digestible instance:

Bright green emerald’s horizon is present never exists as its it is
jumped between future and past the/its jumped gelechild is
hummingbird aggressive fighter but gelechild’s an other’s child
comes up (with itself, humming bird also diffeomorphism,
psychotogenic effects) is in the base runner’s heart’s lake that’s in
him always (is him) outside-gelechild is the gelechild enters it (his).
(114)

From previous poems, the reader knows the base-runner is initially caught in the green emerald horizon where his uncontrollable impulsive nature has no concept or care for time. In this poem we see the gelechild, a small moth, breaking into the emerald horizon with the unexpected reaction of becoming a humming bird, “an other’s child comes up.” Without the next parenthesis, the reader is liable to place little concern on the action, the morphing, taking place—that is not the case here. Within the parenthesis Scalapino shows the reader the interior reaction of the gelechild’s morphing—its succumbing to a schizophrenic delusion. This initial understanding is difficult to read into without special attention to the text. Scalapino uses the short poem length and parenthesis to procure such attention.

The next action the reader sees taking place in this poem is the gelechild immediately finding shelter within the “base runner’s heart’s lake that’s in him always.” This alone would suffice as a conclusion of events, but Scalapino takes it a step further to discuss the base runner’s character. She tells the reader in a short, very simple, parenthesis, “(is him),” the base runner’s base composition is his heart. This is important for the text as a whole because this is the first time Scalapino introduces this character as more than an impulsive uncontrollable ball of energy (usually sexual). Scalapino then walks out of the poem simply and clearly describing the action of the gelechild’s entrance into a lone parenthesis, “(his)” to be sure the reader knows where the gelechild has gone. This poem is the mark of the gelechild’s coming of age walking into the abyss—the bright green emerald Horizon—into an unstable and intense world of mystery, intimacy and wild imagination.

Another way Scalapino takes advantage of the parenthesis is when she brings events and ideas back into the present again. She does this to show ongoing threads throughout the book to be sure the reader understands no matter how fractured this book may seem, everything is continuously interconnected.

The first example is from Now the butterfly blood-reef, where Scalapino uses the parenthesis to maintain her initial mantra from the first page, “memory is not the origin of events” (1):

Now the butterfly blood-reef the freezing passes sixteen or eighteen
thousand feet altitude passage memory of lime (not yet occurring,
one not going there yet) in the enclave Lo-Munthang… The memory
of this trip (that has not occurred yet) is the limen— (76)

In this poem we can see the parenthesis functioning in two ways. In the standing poem Scalapino uses the parenthesis to suspend time. As the character butterfly blood-reef is falling or moving toward the limen—a thick, muddy marsh—Scalapino takes this time to discuss the ever present loom of war that is attached, or rather seen in, the butterfly blood-reef who by this point in the book has come to represent tension. Her area of discussion is the city of Lo Munthang, a country that has fought for their independence since the 1300’s.

The next usage is to maintain her philosophy that memory and its influence on events is not nearly as important as it is made out to be. The parenthesis functions as a reminder to the reader that this space and its characters are composed of liquid matter, not concrete.

Another example of threading via the parenthesis can be found in the emerald dark:

The Distaffer…wakes in her bed in a dream the hump of octopus-avatar still attached on her entire front sucks on her center on the pudendum comes meeting him (she accepts as a normal dream hers rather than an invasion later she sees the base runner on the street goes out—though it has attached when she’d crashed the plane in the ocean) where wide closing her eyes briefly the base runner appeared. (87)

This section is a vital link between a focal relationship between the Distaffer and the base runner. The parenthesis here alludes back to the poem The where the Distaffer, who was flying among clouds near the emerald dark horizon, with her plane, was shot down and the base runner’s avatar, the octopus, “spreads onto her sucking her middle the pudendum” (15). The parenthesis, here, also foreshadows the occurrence, not yet happening, where the two meet outside the emerald horizon and where the base runner will soon die.

The outside meeting occurs four pages later in the poem Meet, when the reader is given another threading parenthesis. “They meet in a café having sighted each other as both are crossing the street. Their images hers ecstatic (while lying on the ocean entwined with the octopus) theirs…” (91). From then on the relationship of the Distaffer and the base runner continues to infiltrate the text, and in the mass of events and characters (and their avatars) Scalapino’s use of the parenthesis allows the reader to witness a continuous thread. The possible and excellent result of this is the ability it has to keep the reader active, no matter how absurd and vast the textual space, forming connections always invested in the following pages. This interest to move to the next poem is proof the author has gained the reader’s trust.

The three previous uses discussed engage the parenthesis creatively within a text while also accomplishing the basic syntactical result of giving the reader an important side thought. This next use of the parenthesis lends itself to more traditional analysis as “a qualifying, or appositive word, phrase, clause, or sentence that interrupts a syntactical construction without otherwise affecting it” (dictionary.com). There are many points within The Dihedrons Gazelle-Dihedrals Zoom that the text requires an extra few sentences to clarify the action or character, and instead of wasting precious words and space Scalapino uses the parenthesis to quickly and effectively make the clarification. (Dcitionary.com)

In the short poem Food the reader can see how Scalapino uses the parenthesis to tell the reader everything they need to know while maximizing the potential of the poem:

The base runner is starved having used up his reserves. They sit the
three (the Distaffer and deb also) together eat in a restaurant. (128)

With this simple clarification parenthesis, Scalapino is able to expose a very simple and concrete event with an efficiency of language. The reader has enough to digest from the first sentence. The base runner, now outside the emerald dark horizon, will die soon, is now human, with a long memory of events that never really happened. And because he is starved and slowing down, by the nature of events and their connections in this book, two other main characters whom are in love (or sexually interested in) the base runner will also begin to starve and slow down.

If Scalapino were to go into further detail about the Distaffer and the deb it would be wasted space. Completely unnecessary. The reader already has 127 pages of their relationship history. Their name presence, made clear by the parenthesis, is the only needed text. Their names already carry, like that of the base runner, a long history of events that never really happened.

The reader can see this again several times in the poem The Distaffer’s memory:

an event in school in ‘study’ period (no content of class, no
instruction occurs in ‘study’ period) two boys…were openly
flying/throwing wadded crumpled paper (wads) at each
other…the hard paper wad…hit the teacher [and] the boy who was
innocent closes his mouth and an expression undefiant (the tall
man standing over him)…That’s all. (108)

Throughout this poem, Scalapino uses the parenthesis to further clarify the action or object by becoming more particular and giving the reader more information. The first parenthesis clarifies the event incase the reader does not know what a “study” period is. The second gives a much shorter alternate name for “wadded crumbled paper” and by doing so allows Scalapino to use this shorter word throughout the rest of the poem easily and with no confusion. The next use helps, like the first, to further describe the scene. By adding this specific action the reader can be more involved with the scene. If the reader can see where an action is taking place, there is no doubt they will actively be more involved. Also in this particular poem, Scalapino uses the parenthesis to interject what information is useful for the person who didn’t have the dream—what she believes the reader should know.

Throughout The Dihedrons Gazelle-Dihedrals Zoom Scalapino uses the parenthesis in several ways, all of which affect the reader’s interaction with the text. Her use to slow the text down and layer, thread and clarify it, are only four of many possible interpretations on how scattered ‘intervals’ can function within a text and open it to potential meaning, and in this particular work, are intricate to maintaining the chaos of endless, ongoing events that never really happened.

Although Scalapino’s virgule and parenthesis are used most often to add further depth to the text punctuationally, they are by no means her only tools. Her unusual use of punctuation is spread throughout the The Dihedrons Gazelle-Dihedrals Zoom with what appears only one concrete rule: Every mark must be placed with intention.

This next section will examine a few examples of how the comma is used by Scalapino to further activate her poems and how her use of punctuation agrees with DeVere Brody who writes, “These are the tenants of “close reading” and good editing in which each mark on the page matters and is the matter of and with writing” (13).

One very obvious mark Scalapino uses is the comma, the breath and backbone of formal writing. When used in a creative sense its formal uses are replaced by a free and active nature to instruct the reader to, among other things, pause, and to continue reading without a noticeable breath.

The first example comes from the poem The flouncing with Nautilus brain where the reader is left alone at the end of the poem to fend for themselves:

—from word to vision the flowers a thin layer black and silent
barely ruffle in the abducent wind that black in day silent
motionless blue, (Scalapino 26)

Instead of a period, or even no punctuation at all that might render a sense of completion, in this poem Scalapino ends with a comma. This opens the white space after the poem to potentially add meaning to the text. If this function is read formally, the reader is expected to continue and that which comes next will, albeit a short curious thought, add to the previous sentence. In this case, she begins with a “word” shape-shifting into an array of colours that blend together through sound, action, and word choice, all the way to the colour “blue.” We are given here an image that is quietly folding into itself and attempting to represent the poem’s overarching theme of abduction. As we know from the word “Nautilus” from the title, this is an infinite pattern. She reminds us of this as she suggests there is an important continuing image that will inevitably happen.

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