Alice Notely reading new work @ St. Marks Cathedral - Review by philipGtaylor

I have to take a deep breath before beginning this review to gather the whirlwind of fragments that make up what is left of my critical mind after Alice Notley's reading this evening at St. Mark's Cathedral. At one point during the reading Alice mentions experiencing the subway and all of the critically "mean faces" whirring past, and I cannot help but imagine her on a platform waiting for a train— she is physically unobtrusive, thin and greying and... I'm sorry to say it: "normal-looking"; I would not think twice when passing by her, except maybe that she might be able to tell me how to find the N train back uptown, but after the intensity of her reading, I'll be looking twice at every subway passenger I see, searching for a brilliant poet hidden there.

The pulpit from which she read seemed small in comparison to the looming wall behind her that was glaringly vacant of a cross, with the angled lights shining down on the empty space above her head— the space was perfectly tailored to this reading, drawing the eye to the illumination that seemed to shine up and out of her head. I say this was perfect because tonight's reading was, in truth, an unrelenting immersion into her brilliantly poetic, artfully confused, deeply contemplative, and playfully unsatisfied mind. "I am a habitué of my own thoughts, but I don't know where they come from, and that's pleasantly scary." This line from her poem (of which I did not catch the name, but referenced peacocks regularly) seems to sum up the content of her readings tonight. Line after line was flung from the page at the packed and breathless audience by her voice that reminded me of a windchime made of bottleglass— strong and sharp, yet fragile in its clarity, as if the force of her poetics will shatter anything that tries to contain it for too long. Another line comes to mind that expresses the impact of her translation of the space we were all in together, "the voice is here, room of the shining sounds." 

The power of Alice's poetry is that it seemed to come immediately and clearly from the exposed palate of her mind, with thoughts forming just as they were spoken, often interrupting each other with their immediacy, sometimes even answering each other without knowing a question was asked. Her words are alive as us, even when taking on the voices of the dead.

Alice played the part of a poetic shaman, barraging us with thought and image, pushing our attention to the point of breaking, only to draw us back in with a calm, almost offhand intensity that had the audience reeling as a leaf spinning in a suddenly windless valley. Simply put— Alice Notley is a poet to admire and cherish, and her poetics should be studied by everyone existing in this century of chaos and barely-contained insanity.