Zither & Autobiography (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Rating:
Summary: die you hippy buddha
Review: I do hand it to the authors of these experimental pieces, they go out there - and Scalapino has incredible chutzpah to try this. Ultimately however, the experiment is unsuccessful, and the no-self doctrine becomes distracting for the other things going on in the text.
I have to say that personality is what is revealed in someone's poetry - but that is not here, rather a vacuous anatman doctrine - and yet what is present is the feeling one gets when they read something which is self-indulgent or self-aggrandizing.
I intend to go see Ms. SCalapino read and I intend to ask what the reader gets in return for all the self annihilation and obtuse prosody here. It's not even characteristically poetry - just non-sequitir drivel and an autobiography by someone who tells you every 2-3 pages that the self is a fiction and something else about a lack of authority in the world or in one's self.
Ms. Scalapino: Hurry up and disappear - and we readers can get on w/out this sort of "experiment" - for a SUCCESSFUL experimental self premise try Alice Notley, esp. "Disobedience" - turn away from this crap.

It sucks it's the suckiest suck that ever sucked it's a simulacra of suckiness it's not even genuinely sucky, it's
contrived to hide the fact that it sucks so bad. If you buy this you suck too sucker...

Rating:
Summary: Don't pay attention to the reductive comments below
Review: I'll admit this isn't my favorite work by Scalapino, as I prefer the sequences of "alien" perspective in 'Considering How Exaggerated Music Is,' or even the highly syncretic fragmentary prose of "dahlia's iris." But to assert this book is merely an excercise of a 'no-self' through writing is unfairly dismissive. 'Zither' is the often difficult (if one is trying to normalise it according to the confines of the traditional lyric) poetry of a mind in constant movement, constant accumulation, a risky "free fall" into the vicissitudes of self. This is a defiant poetry, one that frees itself from the received notions of a static one-dimensional language, yanks on the thread of the veil and restitches it. Scalapino certainly isn't the only poet who can be said to have done that, though she may be the most consistently thorough and brave.

Rating:
Summary: pseudo-intellectual ad hoc rants and the "no self" doctrine
Review: In short, I see Scalapino's Zither and Autobiography as pseudo-intellectual name dropping(s)-oops!) which are ad hoc, at best. If there truly is "no self" then next time (shut the hell up) stop writing once that is stated because anything else you may have to say does not matter. I save my intense delving into ideas for those that have a "self." Aside from some interesting imagery, Zither has nothing of any kind to offer a reader. Do not waste your money on this book! If you find yourself needing a copy, then go to your local library and check it out first. I did not even want to give this book one star, but I had to in order to post this review.
P.S. I'll see you in Boise at the reading, Ms. "no-selfapino!"

Rating:
Summary: pseudo-intellectual ad hoc rants and the "no self" doctrine
Review: In short, I see Scalapino's Zither and Autobiography as pseudo-intellectual name dropping(s)-oops!) which are ad hoc, at best. If there truly is "no self" then next time (shut the hell up) stop writing once that is stated because anything else you may have to say does not matter. I save my intense delving into ideas for those that have a "self." Aside from some interesting imagery, Zither has nothing of any kind to offer a reader. Do not waste your money on this book! If you find yourself needing a copy, then go to your local library and check it out first. I did not even want to give this book one star, but I had to in order to post this review.
P.S. I'll see you in Boise at the reading, Ms. "no-selfapino!"