Alice Notley on Poetry

Alice Notley is a poet whose work has influenced generations of poets; she is considered a pioneering voice on topics such as motherhood, feminism, disobedience and domestic life.

Notley has experimented widely with poetic form and has written a book of criticism, a play, and a biography. She has also edited three publications. Her collage art appeared in Rudy Burckhardt's film "Wayward Glimpses" and her illustrations have appeared on the cover of numerous books, including some of her own. With over forty books and chapbooks and several major awards to her credit, she is one of America's most prolific and lauded poets. She lives in Paris, France.

We met in Ottawa, Canada to talk about, among other things, the enjoyment, pleasure and necessity of poetry; language, communication, voice, and hearing versus reading; Shakespeare; the difficulty of being a female poet; Sylvia Plath; postpartum depression; John Keats; Homer; reading aloud; suffering, skepticism, fate, the death of those close to you and the world of the dead.