NOTLEY, Alice. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. . , Montreal: Club Roll, 2012. His zips are like obelisks; theyre like sculptures inside the paintings. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. That particular poem is in your selected poems, in, , and it was presented upright on the page, but it was published in a review called. My parents were from Arizona. NOTLEY, Alice. When I was a young poet, I couldnt figure out what to title anything, and I discussed this with Ted, who said: You should write to Ron Padgett and get a list of titles, which I did; he just made up all these titles for me. Instead of second-guessing their style, we could talk about the way they handled the tasks. You have a poem called Cherokee (2006). At the moment, it feels like theres not much going on there; because its all going on at the surface actually. 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, Scarlet, and Gare du Nord, the latter two co-edited with Douglas Oliver. AN: I wouldnt be able to take the journey if I couldnt hear the poem thats all based on folk songs and not those lines, but I was writing In the Pines while I was doing the Hepatitis C treatment, where the drugs would depress you, but once a week you would have to take a shot which, they didnt tell you, would get you high for a half hour before you got sick. I just sat in here and wrote about Allen and the international aspect of his work. , 1998. Shehad two sons with him, the poets Edmund and Anselm Berrigan. Ed. And theres a poem called This Kind of Paradise (1986) where the Hopis suddenly appear in a bureaucratic Food Stamps Office. He came around when something bad happened to us. The Indie rock group, (2005), collects a series of sensitive essays she wrote about her own poetry and that of others from her poetic. [3] Notley and Berrigan spent the several months between Long Island and Chicago in Bolinas, California, which is where Berrigan officially printed 165 Meeting House Lane. Mixed media collage, 8.5 x 9.75 in. 11It was a collaboration of sorts, though I generally do not collaborate; I really hate it. In fact, the strong memories of starting points, including the vegetation, you just evoked link you to your New York School entourage. She was in my workshop. I certainly wouldve used anything to keep from being sent. DR: He was deeply inspired by the Hindu tradition, which was brave and opens the culture up. For some 45 years, she has striven against the forces that stifle idiosyncrasy. 10When I was a young poet, I couldnt figure out what to title anything, and I discussed this with Ted, who said: You should write to Ron Padgett and get a list of titles, which I did; he just made up all these titles for me. Said Let there be lightbulbs & liquefaction. BRETON, Andr. Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothque de La Pliade, 1988, p. 643-753. 2023 Cond Nast. Cellophane-covered CD. French poetry was aimless, became philosophical, though now there are some younger poets that are starting to put the concrete back in, but slowly; I discussed it with French poets a few years ago, who confirmed for me that French poetry became abstract out of trauma from World War II, the occupation, and everything, authors being too traumatized to speak concretely. how to express it. There was a piece of paper on my door that said: in your building there were two Jewish children who were taken to the camps; we are going to have a ceremony for the unveiling of a plaque on the rue de Chabrol. She was educated in the Needles public schools, Barnard College, and The Writer's Workshop, University of Iowa. With long and limber lines, a clear narrative, and recognizable characters, this sad and sweet poem about Gracie Allen and George Burns demonstrates Notleys wide range. Notley gave birth to her and Berrigan's second child, Edmund Berrigan, at Colchester Hospital in 1974. She lives and works in Paris. In 2015, she was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Ive written so much in my life that Ive become able to control it all; and when it feels like Im letting go, Im not. In 1992, Notley moved to Paris with her second husband, the British poet and novelist Douglas Oliver (19372000), whom she met while living in England in 1974. Is that right? Perhaps some of Notleys techniques have been absorbed into contemporary poetrys vocabulary, but, as long as conformity threatens, Notley will continue to push against it, or perhaps simply beyond it. I was her teacher, though Im not much older than she is, about four years older. 81DR: Apart from what happens during the performance, can writing poetry be like a dance? Poems.. AN: I learned a lot from him on that level. They ran away into abstract poetry: that makes a lot of sense to me. Notley edited seven of the issues with Berrigan taking over one while Notley was pregnant with their first son. (1979), in talking about Marianne Moore, they say: Pound writes with the phrase, Williams writes with the line, H.D writes with the image, Wallace Stevens and Gertrude Stein write with the word, but Marianne Moore writes with the entire stanza, and I was just wondering if there was a unit that you use? . DR: Speaking of Anne Waldman somehow makes me think of the presence of Native Americans in your work. I had it for a long time and it started to break. NOTLEY, Alice. That was one of the first things Ted [Berrigan] told me about John: he kept a list of titles, like Civilization and Its Discontents, then he would decide, Ah, that would be a great title for a poem, and then later he would check his list and pull that title out. Notley's work is famously heterogeneous, but it's possible to see a gradual. They would go out in the Hopi pueblo and get whatever snakes there were around, and a quarter would be rattlers, but in Prescott, they only used bull snakes. She was 88had just got back upand I was so inspired by how she got back up that I wrote that poem; I also wrote Blinding the White Horse in Front of Me (2016) basically in the same spurt of energy. 94AN: I use all those units and I am aware of how they overlap. This evolution in her work was also spurred by a series of personal losses, including of her husband (the poet Ted Berrigan), her step-daughter, and her brother. [17], Encyclopedia of the New York School Poets. 1976 saw Notley and Berrigan moving their family permanently to New York City's Lower East Side, where they'd live together until Berrigan's death in 1983. From her early days in the male-dominated New York School, Notleys work has been persistently, fiercely feminist, and this poems matter-of-fact mythmakingthe world it describes is ourspresages her later efforts to write women into the Homeric tradition. (1954): that book is fantastic; he caught the new line, which he refers to in one of his letters. Nick Sturm: It's the point where, when you've made so many books, of course manuscripts are talking to you. We were all born in 1945, and despite a certain competitiveness at first, became good friends. You know Newman makes these large, abstract works. deserve to be there, having their names engraved in that particular way. The books were published under the imprint Unimproved Editions and Notley made cover art for the majority of the titles. Among Notleys most famous works is At Night the States, an elegy for Berrigan written two years after his death. Born: Bisbee, Arizona, 8 November 1945. (1945) a couple of years ago because she was being bashed in the States again: they were underlining her Vichy connections in order to make her into a kind of villain, without any regard for how difficult it must have been: a lesbian living with another lesbian, in her sixties, in a country that wasnt her own country, Jewish, thus a prime candidate for the camps. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Its a reasonable question to ask about For the Ride, which begins with a challenge to the reader: Youll have to decipher whats going on, as it happens. How do we make sense of ourselves in relation to huge abstract institutions such as democracy, the state, and marriage? That was written in the Food Stamp Office in 1985. 18DR: The conversation has veered far from Needles, which I hope we will return to, as we evoke various social spaces that seep into the poems. White Phosphorus (1988) and Beginning with a Stain (1987). 53DR: The disturbing political and historical moment we are experiencing could disrupt many collective dreams. Then he writes poetry in the variable foot which is a huge influence on my later work. There are others over there. For Frank OHara's Birthday. I never understand what to do or how to do it, I understand that I 64AN: He was a good friend. WILLIAMS, William Carlos. , Fifth edition, vol.2. For example my poem In the Pines has been set to music by AroarA, who are two members of the Canadian, indie group, Broken Social Scene. Alice Notley on her life with Ted Berrigan. Its refreshing to read poetry so dedicated to its own ends, even if they are occasionally inscrutable. Get this from a library! French poetry was aimless, became philosophical, though now there are some younger poets that are starting to put the concrete back in, but slowly; I discussed it with French poets a few years ago, who confirmed for me that French poetry became abstract out of trauma from World War II, the occupation, and everything, authors being too traumatized to speak concretely. , and she taught me the song later, and my father taught me the chant for the Apache Dog Dance. 96DR: Well I think of Williams as a kind of Calder mobile waiting to enter into movement. In a lecture titled Thinking and Poetry, Notley underscores the deep difficulty of following ones own direction: I find being a poet something that must start again all the time; Im In this interview, she mentions other New York Poets (John Ashbery, James Schuyler, Frank OHara, Kenneth Koch, Ron Padgett, Eileen Myles, Anne Waldman, Joe Brainard, Allan Ginsberg, and Bernadette Mayer). 99: Eileen Myles. The Paris Review. 116AN: I was there. Its flowing world is populated by characters who seem to personify indeterminate pronouns (like a shaman named Qui) and theres a general defiance of set categories: and if one who renews refuses / gender? It seems nobody has any sense of tone of voice any more. Its also a passionate entreaty to writers to make work thats completely their own. Young poets on the Chicago scene regularly hung out with Notley and Berrigan at their home and many followed the couple back to New York City in the late 70s. In the case of John Ashbery, theres a poem called Syringa (1977) with an Orphean motif. Descent would grow to be Notley's most widely read and taught collection after its reprinting by Penguin in 1996. I had this education, so I could have been doing something else but did not want to, was animated by a desire to write poetry, which is truly valuable: I was writing peoples culture for the future. He would fly to Paris, find me, and we would have dinner; also, he had a group of Paris friends. From this anarchic swirl, brilliant language emerges: Color sizzles my cells, a subversive moon appears, and a moment of playing the dulcimer / in a lemon grove startles. Courtesy of Alice Notley, re-photographed by Daesong Kim, April 2018. 17AN: Yes, they were the two Irish of the set. There was a black woman at a desk when I went in who said, What are you doing here? I just sat down and replied, Im a widow; Ive got two children; I know its been a year and a half since my husband died; Im trying to stay at home as much as I can and I have a part-time job (I was working for Allen Ginsberg at the time). I use the collages to go on without thinking with words. My mother was always curious and interested. AN: Complicated as it is, I can sketch it out: basically, everything is just too dense on the planet, which has been a decision made and a byproduct of technology. Revue dtudes amricaines. From February through June 1974 in Wivenhoe, Essex, Notley wrote her book Songs for the Unborn Second Baby (United Artists, 1979). Theres a poem where you talk about meeting Teds mother. She received a BA from Barnard College in 1967, and an MFA from the the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1969. Orpheus is a stand-in for poetry. At Night the States Anne Waldman says that one thing she learned at that point was that the Hindus say carry your enemy on your shoulder. Thats a counter-intuitive idea. DYLAN, Bob, The Man in the Old Black Coat.. Making oneself now,oh One. Although Notley is less known to a casual poetry readershipher inventiveness and audacity are matched by her difficulty she is one of the singular voices in contemporary American poetry. Having published continuously for over 50 years, Notley is one of the most important and celebrated American poets of the 20th and 21st centuries. As she writes in the preface, one of the books few footholds, This poem goes pretty far, and terrifies me, but it should be read for pleasure., Although Personism tells us that simply acting like ourselves is enough to make poetry, its lesson is also surprisingly difficult to absorb. New York: TPR, 2009, p.174-202. To Annapurna or Mt. DR: Lets see, arrive the exactitude of pitch the tune in words alone; thats In the Pines too. This interview took place in Alice Notleys apartment in Paris, in June 2018. The whole point of the Aeneid is to take away from her the founding of a city, and transform her into this love suicide, and to rob her of her power. 60AN: I do not expect to be well known in the universities because that context tends to be too academic, and generally French poetry is in a bad place. Notley was born in Arizona and grew up in Needles, California. At the same moment, at Saint Marks, Bernadette Mayer, Anne Waldman, and I taught poetry workshops. AN: He had no trust in his own ability to write things out, while he had faith in his ability to find things. 90AN: Virgil was just this poet and he had to contend with Augustus Caesar. In this short poem from her 1980 book When I Was Alive, Notley describes a female god who creates, instead of light, lightbulbs & liquefaction, who teaches us affection for paintings and films and the limitations of words. 1Alice Notley is a major American poet of our day, who has been living in Paris since the early 1990s, when she moved there with her second husband, the English poet, Doug Oliver (1937-2000), because Paris was where his professorial career was taking him. So I grew up as friends with Native Americans, and imbued with certain things; I was also attuned to what had happened, without knowing fully, because there was a kind of sadness among the Mojaves in my town, along with immense curiosity and interest among some Anglos. I grew up with the Mojaves, going to school with them. DR: Historically, painting is central to cultural New York and to New York poetry. She has lived most extensively in Needles, in New York, and since 1992 in Paris, France. She was in my workshop. 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