In the Pines

by Alice Notley

A bold and strikingly original new work from one of America's greatest living poets

Alice Notley is considered by many to be among the most outstanding of living American poets. Notley's work has always been highly narrative, and her new book mixes short lyrics with long, expansive lines of poetry that often take the form of prose sentences, in an effort "to change writing completely." The title piece, a folksong-like lament, makes a unified tale out of many stories of many people; the middle section, "The Black Trailor," is a compilation of noir fictions and reflections; while the shorter poems of "Hemostatic" range from tough lyrics to sung dramas. Full of curative power, music, and the possibility of transformation, In the Pines is a genre- bending book from one of our most innovative writers.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

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

[C.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

TO ANYONE WHO WOULD GIVE THIS BOOK LESS THAN 3 STARS if you die before me I promise to use your graves as a toilet for no less than 108 days! The latest issue of Rain Taxi has an abhorrent review calling Alice Notley an Hysteric Poet, making my heart heavy with the metal of anger.

This book has the courage to create a NEW TEMPLATE for the poems of grief.

Anyone who DOES NOT understand that, anyone who dismisses this, well, you bastards don't deserve poetry at all then as far as I'm concerned. Why don't you stick to reading novels and other such safe shit!

CAConrad
http://CAConrad.blogspot.com

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The long opening poem, "In the Pines," is probably the greatest thing I've read in years. It's marvelous. It has everything. It is the Instruction Manual for the new consciousness of the poem. I recommend reading it in one sitting, and then reading it again. And then again.

[Gina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been trying to read more poetry. Notley, with her long career and extensive backlist, seemed like a good author to explore. I'm not sure I'll explore past this one. This is yet another case where I can appreciate the genius of the work but not enjoy it at all. It reads long form postmodern, almost stream of consciousness, but it doesn't take but a few lines to see how each word was carefully, painstakingly chosen. I'm sure there's a contemporary/postmodern literature class somewhere all over this, but for enjoyment's sake, I found this a slog to get through. Another reviewer used the word "esoteric" and I think it fits perfectly.

[Edita · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am tortured by my heart which they say is my mind. I don’t care about those two words.

[hannah ferg · Rating 5 out of 5]

MUCH to think about

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

When your baby's on the cooling board. (14)

I almost admire the symmetries of your biological story. (30)

I'm trying to fix your illness now, you know. Says the man. I'm trying to fix your defect. / It may be what I love now, I say. (50)

I have a necklace of bloody teeth for this cure. Teeth of many martyrs; the stars above the barren town. (53)

You do not have a light / to shine on me. I have it. (112)

Poetry / can justify you too. (117)

Many people whose tastes and brains I admire love Alice Notley's work. I did see her at AWP and it was lovely to be there--though that might have had more to do with the fact that I was flanked by two of my dearest poetry girl friends, a former professor embroidering, and behind me, Rachel Zucker and Arielle Greenberg with knitting in her lap. What I mean to say is, simply because I cannot connect to Notley does not mean she is not brilliant--I will say she is, because I trust those friends' tastes and simply accept that she is not a poet for whom I feel the electricity. It's my loss, you see.

[Ana Laura Iñiguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure I get this kind of narrative poetry. I really liked some general ideas, but I found reading it so taxing.

[Kylie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s so perfect, she excels further and further

[Paula Koneazny · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my review published originally in American Book Review's Line on Line on-line reviews: http://americanbookreview.org/PDF/Lin...

I've just reread In the Pines in conjunction with a poetry project I'm enmeshed/embroiled/mired in and discovered that I almost totally missed the importance of American song, i.e. country, folk, blues to these poems the first time I read (and reviewed) the collection (duh! as if the title, brought to my attention by Steve Harris, weren't a clue). Definitely holds up to a second reading, particularly the long poem In the Pines, which, to my mind, ranks among the most powerful and though-provoking poetry that I've read, ever.

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you AroarA.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

His ghost arms closing
round me from behind;
Try to break their power
Try to rip the beads of power
from his neck
I can’t see his face. I don’t
even know who he is.
And the freedom I
have, I don’t have in this hour.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

one of the first truly experimental pieces ive come across in a long time. the split dialogue(s) and treatment of time/space/death reminded me (favorably) of a breath of life, yet felt oddly personal at the same time

[atito · Rating 5 out of 5]

fuck

[t.a. · Rating 5 out of 5]

the mind-body problem, duh.

[Peter Landau · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It’s almost a story or a poem but it’s really a song because it’s ripping me apart”

[AlliD · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've really struggled with this one. 90% of me will happily concede that is has mostly gone over my head, (but the other 10% would like some instruction.) I suspect the themes she engaging include violence against women, our cultures' narratives around sensationalized violence, addiction, the trouble with capitalism, and agency; but I couldn't really say for sure. "you have no stamina, you're a sick weakling" I read that as an indictment of my inability to comprehend the bulk of the text. (Was I projecting?)

The lines I've enjoyed the most:

"I hope the steeple topples/ I hope all of your religions die/ Not you, not you. // The vending machine has lit up/ to tell us it's empty. / What did you think you ever had to sell me?"

"How far gone/ into my defect/ am i?"

"You're going to have to face that love./ I can't stand to./ The high priestess for that moment is no one."

"What is owed to / beauty:/ finding it out / that is the ode / to beauty. // And no cathedral/ can hold this song/ for me."

From the poem I Can't Speak To You... "No/ pronoun shakes like body. /No"

I can say that reaching for it over the last several weeks, I felt a sense of dread. And the emotional chord it struck most often in me was a stale despair. There is something unforgiving but vital in the narrator's reclamation of power. "You do not have a light / to shine on me. I have it." I'll let it steep and see what else it offers.

[Fizza · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Like rising from the dead
which I did
without you"

This is what some can call pouring your heart out. Brilliant, all of them.

[Cherie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me--while Alice Notley is heralded for her poetry, and I appreciate how marvelously and brilliantly she works with words, she just doesn't speak to me. I admire this book with how she writes poetry in a prose-like form.

[Richard]

I have no idea what Alice Notley is writing about. I see this book gets high marks from other readers, but it's incomprehensible to me. I'll keep it nearby and try again, but not with high-hopes. If anybody out there would like to explain this book to me, I'd be more than happy to pay attention.

[Corey]

"Volumes of poetry by Alice Notley are the great novels of our time."- Ariana Reines

I would disagree and say that great novels are the great novels of our time, but the above quote is enough to have me intrigued, anyway.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 for the whole thing, 5 for the first part

[Bettina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found it very repetitive...and not in a good way.

[Scott]

The title poem of Notley's collection is an extended postmodern prose poetry sequence, inspired & haunted by the blues (specifically Lead Belly's Where Did You Sleep Last Night AKA In The Pines). No one, the narrator, of the sequence is an ambiguous character. The reader has a better sense of her two siblings, a brother & sister, who have been victimized by the American mental health system & correlating stigmas regarding mental illness. On the back cover, it states that Notley's work has "always been highly narrative." I think this is true, but it requires redefining our sense of narrative. Notley's work, esp in this collection, is a loose narrative that works strongly with associative, symbolic meaning & non-linear progression. The second sequence "The Black Trailor" is subtitled A Noir Fiction. There is indeed a corpse here & even a scene that seemed to be paying tribute to Lynch's Blue Velvet, however Notley is not interested in a typical noir story as much as the underpinnings of class & gender that underlay a lot of noir books/movies. After finishing the title sequence last night I listened to the Lead Belly song & numerous covers. My favorites are Lead Belly, Nirvana & Caught A Ghost. The following is a fantastic review of the book which I found helpful in clarifying my thoughts on the title sequence as I was reading:
https://www.raintaxi.com/in-the-pines/

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It is time to change writing completely.
You are not doing that.
Wait and see."

Raw and harrowing, Notley puts her pain to paper and constructs a new form of writing in the process. Her work is often confusing because it is something new - I don't believe I ever read anything like this - and so reading it can often feel exhausting but perhaps her pain should feel exhausting. It should be hard to read about it, not easy. However, I understand if people dislike it - I don't believe it is for everyone.

Here are some lines that I particularly loved:
"Because your writing isn't a translation. It is all you are now."
"I am not a woman. I am a luckless thing."
"Momma told me I was happy; she would cry if I wasn't. This is the way this sadness works."
"I'm not too gone to be healed, am I?"
"I have no more woman in me."
"Aren't I defective? The wind is disturbing my heart."
"Why do you keep calling life a defect? / What else call it if you keep trying to fix it?"
"I won't find you in any of these books, so what good is prose?"

[Juniper · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There are so many ways of hearing. To be is to be like sound, isn’t it light? Which doesn’t matter.”

Listening to a song demands a different kind of listening. Sung words waver; they refuse clean borders. You cross into their realms of meaning intentionally. Notley conjures that kind of journey with In The Pines, mixing limber prose with verse and drawing upon folk music, gospel, noir, and horror in an effort to “change writing itself.”

Her poetry veers from everyday phrasings into uncanny places, often in the course of a single phrase, and it is not easy. I had to read most of it twice. But I couldn’t resist the dark glimmer In the Pines embodies: the way its song strips away “shapes for grief to shape alone,” the way it sets fire to “closets” and identification, the way it pries at hierarchies hiding in our very words.

“Do you serve somebody?,” calls one line. “I serve the poem, no one.”

[Delia Rainey · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is my first time reading a Notley book all the way through. it took me over a month. I kept wanting to get back to it, like the real business of my soul that i had no time for. but every time i gave in to it, i was held tight. instantly berated, "it is time to change writing completely. / you are not doing that. / wait and see. / you have no stamina, you're a sick weakling." this book makes more sense if you are going through a hard time. this book makes more sense if you have a loved one who is sick. this book makes more sense if you know notley's personal history of death and sickness. "there is a red ride without / and maybe you can't know me now. / maybe i'm just blood. / whatever that's for." "start obeying your epitaph."

[Una Bērziņa - Pudule · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s the kind of stream of consciousness where at one point you just want to lean in, close the tap, and say “stop.”
I’ll give Notley another chance, but I really don’t get the defense she’s getting for this one. Breaking the mould, going against the standard to create something completely new is great, but, no, it doesn’t always work out.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

OKAY

[Fernanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not a huge fan of long poems but I found myself enjoying those in this collections the most, they were hypnotizing and I didn’t want to look away.

[Leela Shamash]

terf shit :(