Grave of Light: New and Selected Poems, 1970-2005 (Wesleyan Poetry) - Hardcover

"Always innovative and occasionally maudlin, the poems in Notley's latest book play haphazardly with figures of sound and speech."--Library Journal "She (Notley) herself acknowledges this. 'The longer I've lived here, the more I realize that I don't have any definition of myself-except as a poet.' But, for her readers, those who have waited for a book like Grave of Light to reacquaint them with the work of a writer who has never settled on a specific aesthetic, that's the only definition that has ever really mattered."--Poets and Writers Magazine "Alice Notley is a rare example of a major contemporary poet whose writing life has flourished outside of academia. A crucial member of the second-generation New York School, her work blossomed in the now legendary '70s and '80s Lower East Side enclave of writers, artists, and eccentrics."--Alan Gilbert, author of Another Future: Poetry and Art in a Postmodern Twighlight, Village Voice "There is something positively Whitmanian about Notley's project: large themes, sometimes sprawling lines, but also an intimate voice, an ethical compass."--Poetry Foundation, which also included Grave of Light in its "roundup of 18 of the hottest new poetry titles for the fall season." "The inexhaustible reach and ceaseless invention of Notley's vision make Grave of Light a thrilling testament to her greatest poetic gift: an unwavering faith in poetry's power to change the real."--Brian Teare, Boston Journal "This monumental book features selected work by Alice Notley, one of America's most enduring poets. Notley has strengthened and redefined alternative forms to traditional modes of writing. Her poetry is autobiographical but her linguistic and experimental skills carpet the personal with a timeless vision that transforms the deaths of family and loved ones into poetic dimensions of grief and startling revelation. Over the decades, Notley has built a rich body of work that cannot be categorized or contained in a complex poetic community. Her poems sing of commitment and the daring steps it takes to move away from the predetermined forms toward a level of discourse that fills fresh pages with nobility and courage."--The Bloomsbury Review "Her work displays a lucid sense of humor and a debt to William Carlos Williams." --The New Yorker "Notley developed her own ways of treating feminist thought, high and popular culture, and personal themes. This collection restores to print much of the unavailable work of this underground hero."--Publishers Weekly, Best Books of 2006

Considered by many to be among the most outstanding of living American poets, Alice Notley has amassed a body of work that includes intimate lyrics, experimental diaries, traditional genres, the postmodern series, the newly invented epic, political observation and invective, and the poem as novel. This chronological selection of her most notable work offers a delineation of her life and creative development. Formerly associated with the second generation of the New York School, Notley has become a poet with a completely distinctive voice. "Grave of Light" is a progression of changing forms and styles - an extensive panorama held together explicitly by the shape of the poet's times. Notley's poems challenge their subjects head-on, suffusing language with radiant truth.