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Notley (Alice) Papers
MSS 0319  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Scope and Content of Collection
  • Biography
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Information

  • Descriptive Summary

    Languages: English
    Contributing Institution: Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
    9500 Gilman Drive
    La Jolla 92093-0175
    Title: Alice Notley Papers
    Creator: Notley, Alice, 1945-
    Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0319
    Physical Description: 34.35 Linear feet (54 archives boxes, 16 flat boxes, 1 map case folder, and 3 art bin items)
    Date (inclusive): 1969-2014
    Abstract: Papers of Alice Notley (1945-), an American artist and poet. The collection includes manuscripts, notebooks, correspondence, and original artwork.

    Scope and Content of Collection

    Papers of Alice Notley (1945-), an American artist and poet involved in the New York poetry scene beginning in the mid-1960s. The collection contains correspondence with other prominent poets and writers, typescripts of published and unpublished literary works, notebooks, and Notley's original artwork, including collages, sketches and watercolors. The collection was processed in five major accessions.
    ACCESSION PROCESSED IN 1995
    This accession is comprised of notebooks filled with manuscript writings, correspondence with poets and editors, and examples of Notley's visual art, such as collages. Most of the material dates from the 1960s through the 1990s.
    Arranged in three series: 1) MANUSCRIPTS & NOTEBOOKS, 2) CORRESPONDENCE and 3) ARTWORK.
    ACCESSION PROCESSED IN 1998
    Arranged in two series: 4) MANUSCRIPTS & NOTEBOOKS and 5) CORRESPONDENCE.
    ACCESSION PROCESSED IN 2003
    The accession processed in 2003 complements the first portions of the collection and includes additional correspondence, notebooks, manuscripts and artworks. It also contains material related to the production of the literary magazine Gare du Nord. Most of the papers date from the late 1990s through 2001.
    Arranged in six series: 6) CORRESPONDENCE, 7) WRITINGS, 8) NOTEBOOKS, 9) GARE DU NORD PRODUCTION MATERIALS, 10) ARTWORK and 11) MISCELLANEOUS MATERIALS.
    ACCESSION PROCESSED IN 2011
    Arranged in three series: 12) CORRESPONDENCE, 13) DREAM NOTEBOOKS and 14) WRITINGS.
    ACCESSION PROCESSED IN 2017
    The bulk of this accession dates from 2000 through 2014.
    Arranged in five series: 15) CORRESPONDENCE, 16) WRITINGS, 17) NOTEBOOKS, 18) ARTWORK and 19) MISCELLANEOUS.

    Biography

    Alice Notley was born in 1945 in Bisbee, Arizona. She received a B.A. from Barnard College in 1967, and her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa in 1969. She married the writer Ted Berrigan in 1972, with whom she had two sons, Anselm and Edmund, both poets. After Berrigan's death in 1983, she married the British poet Doug Oliver and relocated to Paris, France.
    Notley's writing and art responds to a broad spectrum of American culture. Among the numerous collections of verse that Notley has published are Incidental in the Day World (1973), When I was Alive (1980), Waltzing Matilda (1981), Margaret and Dusty (1985), and How Spring Comes (1981), which received a 1982 San Francisco Poetry Center Book Award. Notley has also written a short autobiography entitled Tell Me Again (1982).
    Notley is also a visual artist, and her collection includes original artworks such as collages, watercolors, and sketches. Many of her collages are composed of everyday objects and images and are quite consistent with her poetry in that respect.
    Notley was co-editor of the literary magazine Gare Du Nord with Douglas Oliver, publishing five issues over two years (1998-1999). Magazine production ceased in the fall of 1999 when Oliver was diagnosed with cancer; he died the following spring.
    Notley has continued to write both prose and poetry, including an epic poem, The Descent of Alette (1992), and the titles Desamere (1995), Mysteries of Small Houses (1998) (for which Notley was a Pulitzer Prize finalist), Disobedience (2001), Coming After (2005), Alma or the Dead Women (2006), In the Pines (2007), Reason and Other Women (2010), Culture of One (2011), Songs and Stories of the Ghouls (2011), Benediction (2015) and Certain Magical Acts (2016).
    Notley has been recognized by the Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and in 2015 Notley was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.
    She currently resides in Paris.

    Publication Rights

    Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.

    Preferred Citation

    Alice Notley Papers, MSS 319. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.

    Acquisition Information

    Acquired 1995-2017.

    Subjects and Indexing Terms

    American poetry -- 20th century
    Women poets -- United States
    Art, American -- 20th century
    Myles, Eileen -- Correspondence
    Foster, Edward Halsey -- Correspondence
    Messerli, Douglas, 1947- -- Correspondence
    Notley, Alice, 1945- -- Archives
    Ginsberg, Allen, 1926-1927 -- Correspondence
    Codrescu, Andrei, 1946- -- Correspondence
    Whalen, Philip -- Correspondence
    Waldman, Anne, 1945- -- Correspondence
    Scalapino, Leslie -- Correspondence
    Padgett, Ron, 1942- -- Correspondence
    Brainard, Joe, 1942-1994 -- Correspondence