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Poets on Poetry
Coming After: Essays on Poetry
Coming After gathers critical pieces by acclaimed poet Alice Notley, author of Mysteries of Small Houses and Disobedience .
Notley explores the work of second-generation New York School poets and their Ted Berrigan, Anne Waldman, Joanne Kyger, Ron Padgett, Lorenzo Thomas, and others. These essays and reviews are among the first to deal with a generation of poets notorious for their refusal to criticize and theorize, assuming the stance that "only the poems matter." The essays are characterized by Notley's strong, compelling voice, which transfixes the reader even in the midst of professional detail. Coming After revives the possibility of the readable book of criticism.
Notley explores the work of second-generation New York School poets and their Ted Berrigan, Anne Waldman, Joanne Kyger, Ron Padgett, Lorenzo Thomas, and others. These essays and reviews are among the first to deal with a generation of poets notorious for their refusal to criticize and theorize, assuming the stance that "only the poems matter." The essays are characterized by Notley's strong, compelling voice, which transfixes the reader even in the midst of professional detail. Coming After revives the possibility of the readable book of criticism.
192 pages, Paperback
First published March 17, 2005
9 people are currently reading
218 people want to read
About the author
Alice Notley
85 books223 followersAlice 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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March 29, 2014This book hit me hard. Really got me questioning my writing practice in a good way. The first 2/3rds are very good. She writes about poets and reviews their work. About half the poets I had heard of and they other half I hadn't. Her writing about poetry is so engaging that even when she wrote about poets that I hadn't read or heard of, I was still digging it. And I plan to check out some of these folks now.
The last 1/3rd of the book though, is where things start to get really crazy in a good way. She writes largely about her practice. My second favorite essay in the book is "American Poetic Music at the Moment." I was impressed that she was writing so interestingly about poetic rhythm. This is a subject that fascinates me but the writing I'd seen about it before was so jargony and technical that I found it tedious. Notley writes in a very clear way about the subject. By far my favorite essay in the book is "Thinking and Poetry." It killed me. Here's an excerpt:
"Then what am I buying right now? This is the question everyone should be asking all the time, What am I buying, in terms of thoughts and ideas, from others? What are the parts if my reasoning I'm not sure of, but tell myself I am? Am I thinking at all, or am I producing masses of 'style' containing a few 'hits,' just creating a sort of verbal environment? Or letting whatever language comes out of me do its work...new things said, meanings, a wash of, oh, created life. As I myself became a more sophisticated stylist, the temptation simply to verbalize, to make or show off, became stronger. A lot of the time I just wrote stuff, still do. Sometimes that's how I open the door to the next phase of my writing. I used to think it was all publishable as a record of mind of consciousness; I don't think so now, am not interested in work that doesn't have a clear rational shape as well as the pleasure and truth that come from more mysterious depths. I don't want to become the automatic part of me, I want to automatic part of me to become me. That is, I trust my conscious self. I don't like the world outside my door very much but the best of myself is awake and clear. The 'I' I most prefer sits serenely and somewhat numinously behind my personality, behind a sort of window, watching the chaotic and distressing events of the world. I can't often act as that one but it's the one I most really am. The automatic or unconscious is a gas, as we used to say, and may know a lot too; but a lot of it is stuff that has to be organized."
The last 1/3rd of the book though, is where things start to get really crazy in a good way. She writes largely about her practice. My second favorite essay in the book is "American Poetic Music at the Moment." I was impressed that she was writing so interestingly about poetic rhythm. This is a subject that fascinates me but the writing I'd seen about it before was so jargony and technical that I found it tedious. Notley writes in a very clear way about the subject. By far my favorite essay in the book is "Thinking and Poetry." It killed me. Here's an excerpt:
"Then what am I buying right now? This is the question everyone should be asking all the time, What am I buying, in terms of thoughts and ideas, from others? What are the parts if my reasoning I'm not sure of, but tell myself I am? Am I thinking at all, or am I producing masses of 'style' containing a few 'hits,' just creating a sort of verbal environment? Or letting whatever language comes out of me do its work...new things said, meanings, a wash of, oh, created life. As I myself became a more sophisticated stylist, the temptation simply to verbalize, to make or show off, became stronger. A lot of the time I just wrote stuff, still do. Sometimes that's how I open the door to the next phase of my writing. I used to think it was all publishable as a record of mind of consciousness; I don't think so now, am not interested in work that doesn't have a clear rational shape as well as the pleasure and truth that come from more mysterious depths. I don't want to become the automatic part of me, I want to automatic part of me to become me. That is, I trust my conscious self. I don't like the world outside my door very much but the best of myself is awake and clear. The 'I' I most prefer sits serenely and somewhat numinously behind my personality, behind a sort of window, watching the chaotic and distressing events of the world. I can't often act as that one but it's the one I most really am. The automatic or unconscious is a gas, as we used to say, and may know a lot too; but a lot of it is stuff that has to be organized."
September 21, 2022
compulsory reading for poetry module. the text felt unnecessarily long and it took a long time for me to get through the text. i had heard of a number of poets mentioned in the text but i feel that a prior knowledge of the poets’ texts would have helped. it reminded me a little of my experience reading Joan Didion’s Blue Nights, where I felt that the author didn’t explain their relationship to the people mentioned, which gave an air of inferiority to the author. the text did help a little to remind me of some of the poetic terminology that i had forgotten about and helped to highlight some of the breadth in uniqueness of poetry. however, i certainly wouldn’t recommend this text and feel like it didn’t help much to prepare myself for the module or broaden my knowledge of poetry.
February 15, 2018
A nice collection of critical essays and some thoughts on poetics.
June 8, 2009
How can a poetics of doubt not result in bonsai-small or annoyingly humble poetry?
How can one avoid simply telling a modish truth with their poems? (You know what I mean.)
Notley knows! Read Notley's essays "Voice" and "Thinking in Poetry": they had a comet-splash
effect on my poor half-guided poetry-self; I wish I'd read them in my first year
as a writer: I would have wasted way less time.
How can one avoid simply telling a modish truth with their poems? (You know what I mean.)
Notley knows! Read Notley's essays "Voice" and "Thinking in Poetry": they had a comet-splash
effect on my poor half-guided poetry-self; I wish I'd read them in my first year
as a writer: I would have wasted way less time.
May 11, 2013
Is there a way on Goodreads to mark a book as something you'll read and re-read? I got this on vacation a few years ago and read it three times before I returned home. O'Hara, Padgett, Kyger and much more. And some of her best thoughts.
January 15, 2016
Great, wonderfully approachable essays on a shitload of poets I'm excited to learn more about. I was expecting this book to be a lot more mean and showy based on Notley's poetry! But it's not! It's not.
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May 2, 2009A poet's must-have.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews