Alice Notley
| Alice Notley | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Alice Elizabeth Notley November 8, 1945 Bisbee, Arizona, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Known for | Disobedience, St. Mark's Poetry Project |
| Notable work | Descent of Alette, Disobedience, Culture of One, Mysteries of Small Houses |
Alice Notley (born November 8, 1945) is an American poet. Notley came to prominence as a member of the second generation of the New York School of poetry--although she has always denied being involved with the New School movement, or any specific movement in general--having been a workshop leader and frequent attendee and reader at the school's hub, the St. Mark's Poetry Project. Notley's early work laid both formal and theoretical groundwork for several generations of poets; she is considered a pioneering voice on topics like motherhood and domestic life.
Notley's experimentation with poetic form, seen in her books 165 Meeting House Lane, When I Was Alive, The Descent of Alette, and Culture of One, ranges from a blurred line between genres, to a quotation-mark driven interpretation of the variable foot, to a full reinvention of the purpose and potential of strict rhythm and meter. She also experimented with channeling spirits of deceased loved ones, primarily men gone from her life like her father and her husband, poet Ted Berrigan, and used these conversations as topics and form on her poetry. Her poems have also been compared to Gertrude Stein, as well as her contemporary Bernadette Mayer. Mayer and Notley both used their experience as mothers and wives in their work.
In addition to poetry, Notley has written a book of criticism (Coming After, University of Michigan, 2005), a play ("Anne's White Glove"—performed at the Eye & Ear Theater in 1985), a biography (Tell Me Again, Am Here, 1982), and she has edited three publications, Chicago, Gare du Nord, and Scarlet. Notley's collage art appeared in Rudy Burckhardt's film "Wayward Glimpses" and her illustrations have appeared on the cover of numerous books, including a few of her own. As is often written in her biographical notes, "she has never tried to be anything other than a poet," and with over forty books and chapbooks and several major awards, she is one of the most prolific and lauded American poets today.
Notley was born on November 8, 1945 in Bisbee, Arizona and grew up in Needles, California. Notley wrote extensively of her childhood and early life in her book Tell Me Again (Am here, 1982).
Notley left Needles for NYC to attend Barnard in 1963, desiring an escape from the isolation of her hometown. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College in spring 1967 and left NYC that fall for the fiction program at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She was the only woman in her genre and one of two in the entire graduate writing department. Notley cites—in part—a reading by Robert Creeley as early inspiration for her writing more poetry. A close relationship with the poet Anselm Hollo, who was teaching at the program at that time, led to Notley leaving Iowa City for Morocco in 1968. Notley claims it was boring and returned to Iowa City where she met the poet Ted Berrigan who began as an instructor at the school that fall.
...
Wikipedia