Etruscan Reader VII: Alice Notley/Wendy Mulford/Brian Coffey

by Alice Notley, Brian Coffey, Wendy Mulford

In Mysteries of Small Houses, extracted here, Alice Notley explores 'histories' of a southwestern childhood, early poetic awakenings in Iowa and New York's Lower East Side, the Vietnam War, bereavement, and a transference of the poetic 'self' to Paris. Disobedience is also extracted in this anthology. Wendy Mulford's new work here is the first since her collection The Bay of Naples. And Brian Coffey (1905-95) excavated eight French Pleiade poets -- Mallarme, Rimbaud, Nerval, Jarry, Apollinaire, Reverdy, Eluard, and Verlaine -- as 'givens' rather than translations.

142 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

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.