Notley Alice (1945- ).

Alice Notley, born in Bisbee, Arizona, in 1945, is a recognized American poet, author, and editor. Among the numerous collections of verse that she has published are Incidentals in the Day World (Angel Hair Books, 1973), When I Was Alive, (Vehicle Edition, 1980), Waltzing Matilda, (Kulchur Foundation, 1981), Margaret and Dusty (Coffee House Press, 1985), and How Spring Comes (Toothpaste Press, 1981). In addition to her poetry, Notley wrote a short autobiography entitled Tell Me Again (Am Here Books, 1982). Editor of the Scarlet Magazine, Notley was married to Ted Berrigan (1934-1983), who is also a poet.

American poet associated with the New York School of poetry.

Native of Needles, Calif. and graduate of Barnard College. Now residing in Paris, France.

Biography

Alice Notley was born in 1945 in Bisbee, Arizona. She received a B.A from Barnard College, in 1967, and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa in 1969. She married the writer Ted Berrigan in 1972, with whom she had two sons. After Berrigan's death in 1983, she married the British poet Doug Oliver and relocated to Paris, France.

Notley's writing and art responds to a broad spectrum of American culture. Her experiments with poetic forms and free verse owe as much to Gertrude Stein, Frank O'Hara, and Ted Berrigan as they do to William Carlos Williams. Like them, she believes that she is writing primarily to express her own personal tone of voice. She feels her speech is the voice of "the new wife, and the new mother" in her own time, but her first aim is to make a poem, rather than present a platform of social reform.

Among the numerous collections of verse that Notley has published are Incidental in the Day World (1973), When I was Alive (1980), Waltzing Matilda (1981), Margaret and Dusty (1985), and How Spring Comes (1981) which received a 1982 San Francisco Poetry Center Book Award. In addition to her poems, Notley wrote a short autobiography entitled Tell Me Again (1982).

In addition to poetry, Notley has also experimented with the visual arts; her collection includes collages, watercolors, and sketches. Many of the collages are composed of everyday objects and images and are quite consistent with her poetry in that respect. A significant group of the collages are aimed at de-eroticizing images taken from pornographic magazines.

With her second husband, Douglas Oliver, Notley co-edited the literary magazine, Gare Du Nord, publishing five issues in two years (1998-1999). However, the production of the magazine was put aside when in the fall of 1999, Douglas Oliver was diagnosed with cancer from which he died in the spring of 2000.

Notley has continued to write both prose and poetry, published in such works as Desamere (1995), Mysteries of Small Houses (1998), Disobedience (2001), Coming After (2005), Alma or the Dead Women (2006), In the Pines (2007), Reason and Other Women (2010), Culture of One (2011) and Songs and Stories of the Ghouls (2011) among others.