A new book by Alice Notley is always a cause for celebration. Following the monumental publications, Early Works and The Speak Angel Series (both from Fonograf Editions) and the collection of poem-drawings Runes and Chords, The Song Cave have just released Telling The Truth as it Comes Up – Selected Talks & Essays 1991-2018.
The publishers write:
“One of our greatest living poets, Alice Notley, the author of more than forty books of poetry, has delivered an expert array of talks and essays over the last three decades. Telling the Truth as It Comes Up: Selected Talks & Essays 1991-2018 offers a significant contribution to literature, reimagining the possibilities of writing in our time and the complicated business of how and why writers devote their lives to their craft. Whether she is writing about other poets – Ed Dorn, Allen Ginsberg, Homer, bpNichol, Douglas Oliver, or William Carlos Williams – noir fiction, the First Gulf War, dreams and what they’re for, or giving us insight into her own work, Notley’s observations are original, sobering, and always memorable. This collection often eschews the typical style of essay or lecture, resisting any categorization, and is consciously disobedient to academic structures in form. The results are thrilling new modes of thinking that may change the ways we read and write.”
Alice Notley turns 78 today
Previous Alice Notley birthday postings one the Allen Ginsberg Project – here, here and here
Don’t miss Alice’s illuminating St Mark’s Poetry Project Lecture on Allen – here, here, here and here
Her “Zoom” reading for The Brooklyn Rail, back in March, alongside her son, Anselm Berrigan, was a typical tour-de-force and can be accessed here
Paris-based but an international traveler, this past month saw Alice deliver the inaugural Poetry London Lecture at Goldsmiths College, (presented by Goldsmiths and the T.S.Eliot Foundation)
Two days ago (November 6) she read in San Francisco
Watch the video from that extraordinary performance – (with an introduction by Trisha Low) – here
Happy Birthday, Alice!