Thirty-Odd Functions of Voice in the Poetry of Alice Notley
Thirty-Odd Functions of Voice in the Poetry of Alice Notley
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About the Book
Alice Notley has consistently peopled her poetry with the voices of those around her: kids, friends, husbands, strangers, and the dead. In Thirty-Odd Functions of Voice in the Poetry of Alice Notley, poet and critic Steven Zultanski offers an array of interpretations of this technique, sketching relationships between intimate speech and literary language.
This pamphlet is part of UDP’s 2020 Pamphlet Series: twenty commissioned essays on collective work, translation, performance, pedagogy, poetics, and small press publishing. The pamphlets are available for individual purchase and as a subscription. Each offers a different approach to the pamphlet as a form of working in the present, an engagement at once sustained and ephemeral. To view a full list of pamphlets, click here.
Author
Steven Zultanski
Steven Zultanski is the author of several books of poetry, most recently On the Literary Means of Representing the Powerful as Powerless (Information as Material), Honestly (Book*hug) and Bribery (UDP). His essay on Alice Notley’s use of voice is part of UDP’s 2020 Pamphlet Series. His critical writing has appeared in Art in America, Frieze, Kunstkritikk, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Mousse, and elsewhere. He lives in Copenhagen.
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Excerpt
In her poems built from transcriptions of everyday speech, Notley doesn’t tend to choose bits of conversation that capture drama, or that illustrate historical or cultural circumstances. For example, she doesn’t gravitate toward fights over money, tantrums, or bitter words; she’s more interested in banter and rest. While the dialogue is often fast-paced, moving quickly between subjects (literature, children, gossip) and tones (playful, frustrated, tired), the overall effect is relaxed, glazed with contentment, sprinkled with jokes. Conversations between parents and children and friends are recounted with a lightness that suggests the truth of these relationships can be found in moments of offhand intimacy. Much of Notley’s poetry deals with anxiety and conflict and psychological frustration—but when she transcribes the words of friends and family, she’s more interested in letting their happiness be, in holding onto daily flashes of interpersonal peace.