Being Reflected Upon

by Alice Notley

A memoir in verse from one of America's legendary poets

In a New York Times review of Alice Notley’s 2007 collection In the Pines , Joel Brouwer wrote that “the radical freshness of Notley’s poems stems not from what they talk about, but how they talk, in a stream-of-consciousness style that both describes and dramatizes the movement of the poet’s restless mind, leaping associatively from one idea or sound to the next.” Notley’s new collection is at once a window into the sources of her telepathic and visionary poetics, and a memoir through poems of her Paris-based life between 2000 and 2017, when she finished treatment for her first breast cancer. As Notley wrote these poems she realized that events during this period were connected to events in previous decades; the work moves from reminiscences of her mother and of growing up in California to meditations on illness and recovery to various poetic adventures in Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, and Edinburgh. It is also concerned with the mysteries of consciousness and the connection between the living and dead, “stream-of-consciousness” teasing out a lived physics or philosophy.

Genres: Poetry

4 pages, Audible Audio

Published April 2, 2024

About the author

Alice Notley 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, 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. Notley's collage 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.

Reviews

[Gregory Duke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just love hearing Notley's voice, even if many of these poems are individually not totally successful. This being called a memoir in verse is hysterical, especially after having just finished Mysteries of Small Houses, because this is more so about the disintegration of memory and time's collapse in later in life amid death and loss, and, as such, the poems are scatter-brained, funny, spiteful, forgetful, nonchalant, conversational, layered, abstract, primordial, contemporary, all in all having such range, yet the collection oddly coheres because of the ferocity and idiosyncrasy of Notley's narratorial voice, even as many poems seem to be on the verge of unraveling.

[Erin Cataldi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Famed poet, Alice Notley, pens a memoir in verse; primarily reflecting on the last two decades of her life. Being Reflected Upon is a memoir, in the vaguest sense of the definition - but being as it's written by a poet, it works quite well. Notley reflects upon her breast cancer diagnosis, years spent living in Paris, reminisces of her youth and much more. It's not at all linear and told in a stream of conscious way - but for poetry it works. Narrated by the poet herself, this poetry effuses authenticity and introspection. Fans of Alice Notley's work will love this, those unfamiliar with her work may be inspired to read her earlier collections. Heartfelt and affecting, Notley's poetry leaps from the page and straight into the imagination.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seems like a really good, grounding entrance point into her more mystical stuff (hoping)

[Sparrow Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic. In the vein of Whitman or Ginsburg. Poets as “microtonalists” that invent/discover/cultivate “microtones.” Discussion is expansive but essentially concerned with mortality. One could say the project of the text or of Notley’s style is to reproduce the experience of life, “life” as in living, being a mind in a body that experiences the world. Functions also as a manner of late career retrospective or self-assessment, self-archive. “Thought isn’t prose nor is speech.” Notley’s starts and stops, stutters and revisions, amalgamations and dissolutions are cause for great friction (desirable) and delight. Incredible momentum and force.

From “Agamemnon”

“The chorus was the same face projected on a screen/numerous times with vocal overlap./I have I have never I refuse to have been to/be in a chorus I cannot be the chorus the com-/munity I reject the concept though there you are//Prose is when you/say what’s approved or condemned /I mean poetry that’s really prose and in the/chorus you approve of prose though you/speak poetry unknowingly all your life/At that time I but what?”

[Clara Martin]

Favorites: "Jim Carroll's Ass," "And then again looking for a recent past that is a present thick with time past and to come so you know what you're doing in a fact...the idea of a spell or hex...," "As."

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Sara Dudo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some killer lines. Be crying thru some of it. Still, it’s giving “I’m not like other girls” but make it poets

[Noor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe it wasnt for me but- it felt like i couldn’t read or comprehend english.

[Dillon Allen-Perez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather than a collection of poems, this is truly a “memoir through poems” as the synopsis says. Reading Being Reflected Upon feels like stealing Alice Notley’s diary from her room. The “stream-of-consciousness” reads like unedited emotion and—of course—reflection. So, that makes it hard to read. However, there are some flashes of absolute greatness hidden amongst all the “what the hell is she rambling about?”. There is something valuable to get out of reading the messy diary of one of the most interesting poets alive.

A thread that keeps some of it together is Notley’s search for what she calls The Old Language, something the dead use to communicate with each other, and that maybe we humans are all naturally predisposed to tap into occasionally—and that perhaps this is the aim of poetry.

“I’ve been trying to discover
how the dead communicate with each other
trying to overhear them”

“The language
My father translated into English when he
Spoke to me from death. Try to speak that, untranslated.”

“A poem is something you can have
you read it and you have it.”

[Micaela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just a few brief thoughts/notes — my first Alice Notley book, which I picked up because of how extensively Maggie Nelson has written about her in various works (probably mostly just in Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions). Perhaps not a great introduction to her work and one of Notley’s masterpieces are buried in her very prolific catalogue. Regardless, I now see how Notley has influenced Nelson, but unfortunately I mainly recognize my least favorite parts of Nelson’s works here in Being Reflected Upon. The train of thought, at times barely sensual poetry (about repeatedly calling the cops on your neighbor because he plays music too loud for your sensitive ears? Please.) reminds me of Pathemata’s rambling complaints disguised as prose, which I didn’t care for. The highlights were quite high, though. Ultimately not for me.

[T Brown]

This was my first time reading a full collection of Notley's poetry and I was not let down. She is infamously existential and this book was no exception. She ends the book with the phrase "it's always my time" and I am still confused about this decision. I'm not convinced she personally believes this. Living in France for years and claiming to not know French...this diva. Notley used the tab spacing a lot in this book--not sure if this is a normal stylistic choice--but I found its function to prove successful in creating a geography for her poetic within the structure of the line. Molecularly metaphysical many of the time. It's all just so unreal. She spent so much time away from writing before this book...I wonder how she decided what to tell the reader?

[Skylar Miklus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A memoir-in-verse from one of the living legends of American poetry. Notley mourns the death of her second husband, undergoes radiation treatment for cancer, and contemplates the role of poetry in a dying world. Her poetic voice is expansive, singular, restless, and fresh. My favorite poems were "Archival Quality I Remember," "The Fortune Teller," and "Survive." I am grateful to Penguin Books for the review copy.

[F.M Papaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Undeniable that each poem Notley writes is one that no one else could ever compose - I wanted to spend a week with each one, but I borrowed the collection from the library so I couldnt D: in that way, it was really hard to read this whole collection because every poem is so dense with meaning & the form is quite consistent so reading more than two or three in the row feels impossible!

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorites: all of it, the whole river

Please listen to the audiobook, read by the poet in its entirety. I have not heard a voice like hers, words put together and read like that, about a mind I forgot I was living with.

[Hetian bias]

had an existential crisis at the poetry project event on wednesday

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

The mind is the universe, language is a lost shuttle, poetry is a homing device

[Mara]

Favorite poems in this collection were "Agamemnon" and "Dans le Port d'Amsterdam"

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

incredible, vulnerable, and beautiful prose. especially loved "dans le port d'amsterdam" and "POEM"

[Cynthia Sprout · Rating 5 out of 5]

Modern poetry. Not for me.