Alice Notley

Alice Notley was born on November 8th, 1945 in Arizona. Growing up, Alice lived in California, and she went on to get her BA from Barnard and her MFA from the writer's workshop at the University of Iowa.

Travel and transience seem to be common themes in Notley's life. She traveled and lived in many places growing up, living in San Francisco, Chicago, London, and Essex. Eventually she settled down on the LES and married poet Ted Berrigan. After his death, she eventually married British poet Douglas Oliver. Currently she lives in Paris.

These life experiences obviously influence her poetry. Notley is often associated with the second generation of the New York School of Poetry, but she also focuses on the desert and desert life. Notley has declared that her primary focus in writing is to create a poem, not to create a vehicle for change-- creating art for art's sake, without necessarily having a pedagogy to it. Notley has said that her voice is the voice of "the new wife, and the new mother." It is interesting to consider this perspective from Notley's stated intent.

Notley was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has received many accolades including the Los Angeles Times Book Award for poetry. She has published many works including Disobedience, Mysteries of Small Houses, and Tell Me Again, which is an autobiographical work that features paintings, sketches, collages, and her verse.

Here are some recordings of her reading her poetry:
"The Descent of Alette [A Car Awash with Blood]" : http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19854
"Hematite Heirloom Lives On" : http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19850

The Descent of Alette ["I stood waiting"]
"I stood waiting" "for some minutes" "in this very" "alive darkness—" "the air so vibrant," "the trees awake" "There were flowers," "mixed grasses," "growing lower" "in the dark," "& I was relieved" "to be near them" "after so much time" "where nothing grew" "Then" "I heard a song" "faint & blurred," "a slow song" "I heard it" "as if through walls" "As if" "there were a room" "next to where I stood" "& someone," "a man," "sang inside of it" "The tune was sad," "& attracting" "I approached it—" "where its source seemed to be—" "& it moved away from me" "just a" "short distance" "This happened twice" "Then I understood" "I was to follow it:" "& so it led me—" "through deep woods" "& clearings," "for" "a long while" "The voice sang" "the same melody" "over" "& over" "mournful" "& intimate" "in a language" "I didn't recognize—" "or didn't think I did:" "it was hard to" "hear the words—" "Till at last we" "reached a meadow" "where the song" "ceased to sound," "pale & empty" "with trees around it" "Then I sank to" "the ground" "& fell asleep for" "a long time" "But when I awoke" "of course" "it was dark"

No World is Intact

No world is intact
and no one cares about you.

I leaned down over
don’t care about, I care about
 you
I leaned down over the

world in portrayal
of carefulness, answering

something you couldn’t say.
walking or fallen and you
 were supposed
to give therapy to me—

me leaning down
brushing with painted feathers
to the left chance your operatic,
 broken

book.

World's Bliss

The men & women sang & played
they sleep by singing, what
shall I say of the most
poignant on earth the most glamorous
loneliest sought after people
those poets wholly beautiful
desolate aureate, death is a
powerful instinctive emotion—
but who would be released from
a silver skeleton? gems
& drinking cups—This
skull is Helen—who would not
be released from the
Book of Knowledge? Why
should a maiden lie on a moor
for seven nights & a day? And
he is a maiden, he is & she
on the grass the flower the spray
where they lie eating primroses
grown crazy with sorrow & all
the beauties of old—oh each poet's a
beautiful human girl who must die.

I included these three poems of hers because they are all differently shaped. The "Descent of Alette" poems are more like prose, with a variety of punctuation and an abundance of quotations--a speaker, whereas "No World Intact" and "World's Bliss" are more of a narrative. I really like the way Notley plays with language and sound, and the way she breaks her lines. There is some level of chaos in the way the poems are structured, but there is a concreteness in her consistency of imagery and word sounds. I can feel her pushing the reader to carry the motion of the poem when they read the lines. Something that also strikes me is Notley's intent in writing poetry-- to create poems. Often I am, for lack of a better phrase, hung up on whether or not poetry is still valid if it does not serve a greater (for lack of another better word..) purpose. Notley's poetry allows me to feel comfortable with poetry that does not have an agenda, and I think that that is crucial within the art world.

Additional information about Notley can be found at poets.org- they have a lot of great biographical information and more of her poetry posted: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/767


- katy