Remembering Alice Notley (1945-2025)

Christopher Luna, Douglas Oliver and Alice Notley in June 1998

I was sad to learn that Alice Notley has died. I was very fortunate to study with Alice Notley at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics from June 14-21, 1998, when she was a visiting faculty member for the Summer Writing Program. I found Alice to be charming, brilliant, and down-to-earth. Her approach to finding material for her poems was very liberating for me. I was also treated very kindly by her sons Anselm and Edmund and her husband Douglas Oliver, for whom I served as a teaching assistant that week. Other students in the workshop included Lisa Birman, Tyler Burba, Josepha Conrad, Virginia Evans, Derek Fenner, Rachel Levitsky, Colleen McGovern, Matt Meighan, Jeni Olin, Diana Rickard, and Cedar Sigo. Below I have pasted some photos from that wonderful week at the Naropa Institute.

Here are my notes for Alice Notley's workshop: 

     

Later I was honored when Douglas Oliver and Alice Notley selected one of my poems for literary magazine Gare du Nord, which was published iun France, where they lived.

This was one of my first published poems. It was so exciting to be published in another country, and by two such esteemed poets. 

Here is a black-and-white reproduction of the front cover of my journal that I included in the materials I submitted for credit that summer. 

My heart goes out to Alice Notley's family, freinds, and students.