Alice Notley

See my review published originally in American Book Review's Line on Line on-line reviews: http://americanbookreview.org/PDF/LineOnline/Issue29_V6_LineOnLine.pdf

I've just reread In the Pines in conjunction with a poetry project I'm enmeshed/embroiled/mired in and discovered that I almost totally missed the importance of American song, i.e. country, folk, blues to these poems the first time I read (and reviewed) the collection (duh! as if the title, brought to my attention by Steve Harris, weren't a clue). Definitely holds up to a second reading, particularly the long poem In the Pines, which, to my mind, ranks among the most powerful and though-provoking poetry that I've read, ever.… (more)

Written over the period July 1995 through August 1996, Notley's long poem (very long poem in that the book is 284 pages)is a combination dream journal, commentary on current events (Parisian particularly), memoir, anti-patriarchal manifesto (especially poetry world patriarchy)and metaphysical journey (quest by the self for the self of the self). The quest by/for/of the self takes the Soul (not a theological soul but all that one can't place one's hands on) down into the caves of imagination in the company of the Will whose names are many (Harwood, Hardwood, Robert Mitch-ham, Dante Hardone, Hardmitch, Basehart, Hardtimes, Hardwill, Hardlife, etc.)I read Disobedience as one long poem, even though the book is divided into sections which are themselves comprised of poems with titles (very long titles for the most part). While reading, I skipped over the titles, which my reading brain failed to acknowledge. On the other hand, Notley's use of a truncated line to separate "stanzas" is a formal element that did make me pay attention, as it often signals a shift from dream to saga to news clip, etc. Notley writes in the first person: elsewhere she has said, "I’m disappointed that some contemporary women poets might want to give up “voice,” as if that were possible or good. Voicelessness wouldn’t make a point that anyone outside a coterie would get; veiling the speaker hedges issues and responsibility for what’s said and what’s lived, individually and communally." Bearing that in mind, Notley's "I" is a dialogic, unshirking, multiple-persona force. Disobedience is a book that is radically unhospitable ("I've taken some/ care that this poem not be a nice place." 279) yet not without humor ("Should the soul eat quite so many/ chocolates, oh why not?" 278). I find particularly salutary her, so-to-speak, spiritual/ religious stance: "I don't propose an equalitarian lovingkindness or compassion./ I propose, for women, always an instinctive wariness./I propose, further, meditation in separate closets, without/ instructions. That's/ the whole religion. It never has to be proposed again/ in order to exist. It has no organization and no beliefs." Yes.… (more)

I'm a big fan of Alice Notley: Disobedience, Descent of Alette, In the Pines etc. A friend gave me a copy of this earlier work, which is interesting to relate to the aforementioned books. Notley's genius is still gelling at age 30, however. I especially liked the poems "Pure Weather," "Thriller," & "Ode: Of Fire and Sky." Also so many lines, such as the following: "an act of shocking outskirts," "Colors that lean exchanging visits," "matter is of great interest/ dashed to pieces the waves so big/ I saw a few little things/ daily," "I'm sure of my dress's position," "beat/ the dead and whiten the doors/ with undulance," "would you please help me rotate my crop," and "I love you as a fan loves air. oops it's I/ vice-versa I."
A stanza in the poem "To" seems to foreshadow the poetry that is to come:
I am a tart slice
of female Americana. You can underscore my pieties
anyway you want to.
You do it.
Leave Me Alone.

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This book is many things simultaneously: a collection of experimental poems utilizing different female personae; a cry of abject despair regarding US foreign policy; a set of incantations, curses, and other witchery; a call for the creation of a new species, defecting from the old. The fact that none of these things are particularly popular make it all the more impressive that this book ever made it to press. Enjoyable in small doses, sobering at its full length (at 344 pages it dwarfs most other volumes of contemporary poetry on my shelf).… (more)