1. Remembering Novembers all the Novembersare this leafy room and I’m the onein the carriage over the rustle and under therustle of leaves under the sky flowing I’mthe one I’m a solemn solemn baby I’m nobody the baby and I’m the nobodypushing the baby we float through goldleafy rooms almost enough it’s almostwhen it was enough we search each other outvia oceanic eyes no we’re just taking awalk and we’re almost home and the silverhandle is cold in my hands and I’m tiredof flowing blue and gold 2.All music when you come to think butto be released too short a day for laterlater, when the various rains willcome, when the size and weight of it willbe known when intelligence will be brilliancemore, radiance radiance when I am theworld’s light as you when I havewrenched out all my substance then I can sit on the porch withmy baby in the bronzed autumn light
Two for November
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- February 21, 2023
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“Two for November” from EARLY WORKS: by Alice Notley.
Published by Fonograf Editions on February 21, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 by Alice Notley.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Alice Notley’s upcoming books are The Speak Angel Series, and Early Works, from which “Two for November” is taken. Also forthcoming is a book of poem/drawings, called Runes and Chords. Other recent books include For the Ride and Eurynome’s Sandals. She lives and writes in Paris, France.
Early Works collects Pulitzer-Prize nominated poet Alice Notley's first four out of print poetry collections, along with 80 pages of previously uncollected material. A must have for any Alice Notley fan. Includes original cover artwork as well, by Philip Guston, Philip Whalen and George Schneeman, among others.
“The range, comprehensiveness, and empathetic imagination of Alice Notley’s poems are among the major astonishments of contemporary poetry. Book by surprising book, she reinvents not only herself as a poet, but also what it means for anyone to write a poem at this volatile moment in our history.”
— Robert Polito
“Alice Notley is a disobedient medium: the dead speak through her and she speaks back. Sometimes she’s a poet of intimate address, sometimes of epic sweep. Notley’s formal experiments allow us to make contact with poetry’s originary and anarchic force.”
— Ben Lerner
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