Alice Elizabeth Notley (November 8, 1945 – May 19, 2025) was an American poet. Notley came to prominence as a member of the second generation of the
New York School of poetry—although she always denied being involved with the New York School or any specific movement in general. Notley's early work laid both formal and theoretical groundwork for several generations of poets; she was 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
Edmund Joseph Michael Berrigan Jr. (November 15, 1934 – July 4, 1983) was an American poet.
Early life
Berrigan was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 15, 1934. After high school, he spent a year at Providence College before joining ...
, and used these conversations as topics and form in her poetry. Her poems have also been compared to those of 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 wrote 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 edited three publications, ''Chicago'', ''Scarlet'', and ''Gare du Nord'', the latter two co-edited with
Douglas Oliver
Douglas Dunlop Oliver (14 September 1937 – 21 April 2000) was a poet, novelist, editor, and educator. The author of more than a dozen works, Oliver came into poetry not as an academic but through a career in journalism, notably in Cambridge, Par ...
. Notley's
collage
Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...
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 was one of the most prolific and lauded American poets. She was a recipient of the
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is awarded annually by The Poetry Foundation, which also publishes ''Poetry'' magazine. The prize was established in 1986 by Ruth Lilly. It honors a living U.S. poet whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordin ...
.
Early life
Notley was born on November 8, 1945, in
Bisbee, Arizona
Bisbee is a city in and the county seat of Cochise County, Arizona, Cochise County in southeastern Arizona, United States. It is southeast of Tucson, Arizona, Tucson and north of the Mexican border. According to the 2020 United States census, ...
, and grew up in
Needles, California
Needles is a city in San Bernardino County, in the Mojave Desert region of Southern California. Situated on the western banks of the Colorado River, Needles is located near the California border with Arizona and Nevada. The city is accessible v ...
.
Notley wrote extensively of her childhood and early life in her book ''Tell Me Again'' (Am here, 1982).
Notley left Needles for New York City to attend
Barnard College
Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...
of
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
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 New York City that fall for the fiction program at the
Iowa Writers' Workshop
The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a graduate-level creative writing program. At 89 years, it is the oldest writing program offering a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in the United States. Its acceptance rate is between 2 ...
at the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...
.
[ She was the only woman in her genre and one of two in the entire graduate writing department. Notley cited—in part—a reading by ]Robert Creeley
Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than 60 books. He is associated with the Black Mountain poets, although his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. Creeley was close with Charle ...
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
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
in 1968. Notley claimed that it was boring and returned to Iowa City where she met the poet Ted Berrigan
Edmund Joseph Michael Berrigan Jr. (November 15, 1934 – July 4, 1983) was an American poet.
Early life
Berrigan was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 15, 1934. After high school, he spent a year at Providence College before joining ...
who began as an instructor at the school that fall.
After Notley's graduation, she and Berrigan spent periods of time in New York City and Buffalo. During the winter of 1970–71, Notley and Berrigan lived on Long Island, where Notley wrote her first book, ''165 Meeting House Lane'' (Twenty-Four Sonnets). The book took its title from the address of their home on Long Island and was published by Berrigan's C Press. It bears a dedication to James Schuyler
James Marcus Schuyler (November 9, 1923 – April 12, 1991) was an American poet. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1980 collection ''The Morning of the Poem''. He was a central figure in the New York School and is of ...
and Anne and Fairfield Porter, who were also living together on Long Island at the time. Notley also thanked Tom Clark who would go on to re-publish the sonnet cycle in his anthology ''All Stars.'' 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''. Notley's second book, Phoebe Light, was published in 1973 by Bill Berkson's Bolinas-based press Big Sky.
1972–75: Chicago and Essex
In 1972, Notley married Berrigan and the two moved to Chicago where Berrigan had been given Ed Dorn's newly vacated teaching position at Northeastern Illinois University
Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) is a public university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. NEIU serves approximately 5,000 students in the region and is both a federally designated Hispanic-serving institution and Asian American and Nat ...
.[ Notley and Berrigan joined an already active community of Chicago poets, including Paul Carroll, Paul Hoover, and Maxine Chernoff. Notley gave birth to their first son, Anselm Berrigan, named after Anselm Hollo, in 1972, as well.][
At Berrigan's behest, his students at Northeastern became very active members of the local poetry scene, starting magazines and reading series. One group of students—Darlene Pearlstein, Peter Kostakis, and Richard Friedman—started a small poetry press, The Yellow Press, which would go on to publish two books by Notley, one book by Berrigan, and give out a yearly Ted Berrigan Prize—overseen in part by Notley—for a first book (though the press would cease publishing two years in). 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. The circle of younger poets who spent time with Notley and Berrigan included the aforementioned members of the Yellow Press team, ]Barbara Barg
Barbara Barg (April 29, 1947 — May 22, 2018) was a poet, writer, and musician.
Barg was born in Memphis, Tennessee and raised in Forrest City, Arkansas. After studying with poet Ted Berrigan at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, she ...
, Rochelle Kraut, Rose Lesniak, Bob Rosenthal, Steve Levine, Simon Schuchat, Tim Milk, and several others.
While in Chicago, Notley started publishing her magazine ''Chicago'', a legal-sized mimeograph publication which would continue through both her pregnancies and even her relocation to England. Notley began the magazine to connect with preexisting poet friends and meet new writers on both coasts while living in the midwest. The magazine ran for eight issues, three of which were published while Notley and Berrigan lived in England. Notley edited seven of the issues with Berrigan taking over one while Notley was pregnant with their first son. The artist George Schneeman, perhaps most famous for his artworks that appeared on the covers of dozens of books of poetry, did all of the covers for the magazine.
In 1974, Berrigan got a job as a visiting poet at University of Essex
The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, it is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. The university comprises three camp ...
, so Notley and Berrigan, with their son Anselm, relocated first to London, then to Brightlingsea
Brightlingsea (, traditionally , , ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the Tendring District, Tendring district of Essex, England. It is situated between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea, at the mouth of the River Colne, Essex, River Colne, on ...
in Essex. While in England, Notley would write her second sonnet cycle ''Great Interiors, Wines and Spirits of the World,'' which was originally published in a Notley-themed issue of the Chicago magazine Out There.
From February through June 1974 in Wivenhoe
Wivenhoe ( ) is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Colchester, Colchester district, in north-eastern Essex, England, approximately south-east of Colchester. Historically Wivenhoe village, on the banks of the Riv ...
, Essex, Notley wrote her book ''Songs for the Unborn Second Baby'' (United Artists, 1979). While Notley had written on motherhood prior to ''Songs'', this book was her first to focus fully on the matter and is the first full-length book of a New York School-affiliated poet to take on the task of addressing poetry's sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but primarily affects women and girls. It has been linked to gender roles and stereotypes, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is int ...
and the pressures and setbacks of motherhood in both personal and creative life. It was reissued in 2021 by the London-based small press Distance No Object. Notley gave birth to her and Berrigan's second child, Edmund Berrigan, at Colchester Hospital in 1974.
The couple returned to Chicago for a brief period after their year in England before moving to New York City in 1976.
1976–92: New York City
1976 saw Notley and Berrigan moving their family to New York City's Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...
, where they'd live together until Berrigan's death in 1983. Their apartment at 101 St. Mark's Place again became a hub for both young writers and Berrigan and Notley's contemporaries. Notley remained fairly prolific during this era, writing and publishing several full-length collections. Perpetually strapped for cash, the two took on whatever small jobs they could to support the family. Notley and Berrigan were frequent instructors at Naropa University
Naropa University is a private university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, it is named after the 11th-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa, an abbot of Nalanda. The university ...
's summer writing program. Some of Notley's most famous engagements with the poetry community while in NYC were her workshops at the Poetry Project
The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church was founded in 1966 at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in the East Village of Manhattan by, among others, the poet and translator Paul Blackburn. It has been a crucial venue for new and experimental poetr ...
at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery, which were attended by dozens of young poets including Bob Holman, Patricia Spears Jones, Steve Carey, and Susie Timmons. Eileen Myles
Eileen Myles (born December 9, 1949) is an American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. Novelist Dennis Cooper has des ...
wrote of their experience in Notley's workshops in their books ''Chelsea Girls'' (Black Sparrow Press, 2004; Ecco, 2015) and ''Inferno'' (O/R Books, 2010). Of her 1983 workshop, Notley wrote:
In 1986, Notley led a workshop where participants were required to write an entire book during the course of their meetings. After the workshop ended, Notley teamed up with students to print copies of their works on the mimeograph
A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator or stencil machine) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a co ...
machine in the St. Mark's basement. The books were published under the imprint Unimproved Editions and Notley made cover art for the majority of the titles. Her own book, entitled ''Parts of a Wedding,'' was published first in a small edition by Unimproved Editions then later as a section of the O Books anthology ''O One.''
Berrigan's death in 1983 struck the poetry community exceptionally hard and over the next decade, Notley would suffer the loss of many others who were close to her.[ Notley's 1985 play "Anne's White Glove," a commission by ]Ada Katz
Ada Katz (born May 30, 1928, in the Bronx, New York (state), New York) is the wife and model of Alex Katz. Perhaps best known for appearing in over 1000 of her husband's paintings including ''Black Dress (painting), Black Dress'' (1960), Katz was ...
's Eye and Ear Theater navigated the pain of Berrigan's death, and her collections ''Margaret & Dusty'' (Coffee House, 1985), ''Parts of a Wedding'' (Unimproved Editions, 1986), and ''At Night the States'' (The Yellow Press, 1987) contain material written during a period of mourning. Notley's elegiac work during this era, including her poems "Beginning With a Stain" and "At Night the States," is some of her most widely celebrated.
1992–2025: Paris
In 1992, Notley moved to Paris with her second husband, the British poet and novelist Douglas Oliver
Douglas Dunlop Oliver (14 September 1937 – 21 April 2000) was a poet, novelist, editor, and educator. The author of more than a dozen works, Oliver came into poetry not as an academic but through a career in journalism, notably in Cambridge, Par ...
(1937–2000), whom she had met while living in England in 1974, and had married in 1988.[ The two worked on two magazines together, ''Gare du Nord'' and ''Scarlet'', and self-published a compendium of their own books, ''The Scarlet Cabinet,'' which contained Notley's '' Descent of Alette''. ''Descent'' would grow to be Notley's most widely read and taught collection after its reprinting by ]Penguin books
Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
in 1996. Notley remained in Paris but made several trips to the United States each year to give readings and teach small workshops. Some have linked Notley's geographical move to Paris—since it followed a period of intensely personal writing—as also marking a creative distance between herself and her poems, though her books ''Mysteries of Small Houses'' (Penguin, 1998), and ''Culture of One'' (Penguin, 2011) engage very much with personal matter.
In 1999, Notley was both a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
and a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The ''Los Angeles Times'' Book Prize currently has nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), his ...
for Poetry. In spring 2001, she received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...
and the Poetry Society of America
Poetry (from the Greek word '' poiesis'', "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any partic ...
's Shelley Memorial Award The Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America, was established by the will of Mary P. Sears, and named after the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The prize is given to a living American poet selected with reference to genius and need, and is ...
. This period also marked an increase in scholarly interest in Notley's work.
Notley stayed very involved in the preservation of both Berrigan and Oliver's works, having edited and written introductions for a number of their books, and she continued to be a prolific and powerful force in contemporary poetry, winning the Leonore Marshall Poetry Prize in 2007 and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2015. Several poems from her 2007 collection ''In the Pines'' were set to music by the Canadian indie pop
Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with a DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and s ...
band AroarA for their 2014 Polaris Music Prize-nominated 2013 EP ''In the Pines'' and in Fall 2014, a conference celebrating Notley's work was held at the Bay Area Public School in Oakland, California. Over two nights, November 14 and 15, 2016, Notley read ''The Descent of Alette'' in its entirety at The Lab
The Lab (formerly Co-LAB) is a not-for-profit arts organization, performance space, and artist residency located in the Redstone Building in San Francisco's Mission District. Since 1984, The Lab has hosted performances and projects by artists i ...
in San Francisco.
Alice Notley died from a stroke at a Paris hospital on May 19, 2025, at the age of 79. At the time of her death, she also had ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer is a cancerous tumor of an ovary. It may originate from the ovary itself or more commonly from communicating nearby structures such as fallopian tubes or the inner lining of the abdomen. The ovary is made up of three different ...
.[
]
Timeline
;1970s
* ''Poems & stories (thesis, unpublished)'' (University of Iowa, 1970)
* ''165 Meeting House Lane'' (C Press, 1971)
* ''Phoebe Light'' (Big Sky, 1973)
* ''Incidentals in the Day World'' (Angel Hair, 1973)
* ''For Frank O'Hara's Birthday'' (Reality Street, 1976)
* ''Alice Ordered Me to Be Made'' (The Yellow Press, 1976)
* ''A Diamond Necklace'' (Frontward Books, 1977)
* ''Songs for the Unborn Second Baby'' (United Artists, 1979; reprint Distance No Object, 2021)
;1980s
* ''Dr. Williams' Heiresses'' (Tuumba, 1980)
* ''When I Was Alive'' (Vehicle Editions, 1980)
* ''How Spring Comes'' (Toothpaste Press, 1980)
* ''Waltzing Matilda'' (Kulchur Press, 1981; reprint Faux Press, 2002)
* ''Tell Me Again'' (Am Here/Immediate Editions, 1982)
* ''Sorrento'' (Sherwood Press, 1984)
*
* ''Parts of a Wedding'' (Unimproved Editions, 1986)
* ''At Night the States'' (The Yellow Press, 1988)
* ''From a Work in Progress'' (Dia Foundation, 1988)
;1990s
* ''Homer's Art'' (Institute of Further Studies, 1990)
* ''The Scarlet Cabinet (with Douglas Oliver)'' (Scarlet Editions, 1992)
* ''Selected Poems of Alice Notley'' (Talisman House, 1993)
* ''To Say You'' ( Pyramid Atlantic, 1994)
* ''Close to Me and Closer...(The Language of Heaven)'' and ''Desamere'' (O Books, 1995)
*
*
* ''Byzantine Parables'' (Cambridge, 1998)
;2000s
*
* ''Iphigenia'' (Belladonna, 2002)
* ''From the Beginning'' (The Owl Press, 2005)
* ''City of'' (Rain Taxi, 2005)
*
*
*
*
* ''Above the Leaders'' (Veer Books, 2008)
;2010s
*
*
*
* ''Secret ID'' (The Cantenary Press, 2012)
* ''Negativity's Kiss'' (Presses universitaires de Rouen et du Havre, 2013)
* ''Manhattan Luck'' (Heart's Desire, 2014)
*
* ''Certain Magical Acts'' (Penguin Poets, 2016)
* Eurynome's Sandals (Presses universitaires de Rouen et du Havre, 2019)
;2020s
* For the Ride (Penguin Poets, 2020)
*
* ''Get the Money!: Collected Prose (1961-1983)'' (City Lights Books, 09/13/2022)
Get the Money!
* ''Telling the Truth as It Comes Up: Selected Talks & Essays 1991-2018'' (Song Cave, 11/15/2023)
* ''Being Reflected Upon'' (Penguin Poets, 2024)
References
External links
MSS 319
Special Collections & Archives
UC San Diego Library.
*
Griffin Poetry Prize biography
Griffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clip
Interview by Douglas A. Martin
at '' Loggernaut''.
A State of Disobedience:
by Joel Brouwer, published October 14, 2007: ostensibly a review of Notley's 2007 release ''In The Pines'', this piece is a perceptive outtake as it both encapsulates the arc of Notley's career in poetry and the trajectory of her developing poetics
Academy of American Poets biography
on poets.org
The Electronic Poetry Center at Buffalo University's entry on Alice Notley
Alice Notley by Robert Dewhurst
''Bomb
A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...
''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Notley, Alice
1945 births
2025 deaths
20th-century American poets
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American poets
21st-century American women writers
American emigrants to France
American expatriates in England
American women poets
Barnard College alumni
Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
Modernist women writers
Modernist writers
New York School poets
People from Bisbee, Arizona
People from Needles, California
Poets from California