Alice Notley Forever

The defining quality of Alice Notley is that she was first and foremost, a poet. Born in Needles, California, she attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop where she met Ted Berrigan—and quickly became an important voice in the 2nd Generation of the New York School. She later went on to push the lyric form to the edges of its capabilities, exploring epic modes, narrative forms, genre-bending sequences, and, with characteristic disobedience, work that began to defy the limits of poetry itself—all with raw, uncompromising authenticity. She could make grief tangible, make intimate the cosmic, and bend her voice so as to encompass both our world, and the world of the dead. She also wrote some of the most insightful essays on the actual act of poetry—what it feels like to write poetry—that we have today. Throughout all of this she was, and remains, a poet.

In preparing this folio we sought to gather a chorus of voices that could speak to the many modes and intuitions that Notley practiced and followed throughout her life, and in doing so, celebrate the singularity of her life and work. From elegiac lyrics, to personal essays, letters, notes, and tessellations, to critical examinations and close readings, we hope to pay tribute to a great poet who helped shape our contemporary landscape, and who provided many of us a way forward in this life in poetry. This folio is ultimately a work of love. Something, like poetry, that we all share. Thank you Alice.