Mysteries of Small Houses: Poems (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780140588965)

A Pulitzer Prize Finalist
Winner of the Los Angeles Time Book Prize

Alice Notley vividly reconstructs the mysteries, longings, and emotions of her past in this brilliant collection of poems that charts her growth from young girl to young woman to accomplished artist. In this volume, memories of her childhood in the California desert spring to life through evocative renderings of the American landscape, circa 1950. Likewise, her coming of age as a poet in the turbulent sixties is evoked through the era's angry, creative energy. As she looks backward with the perspective that time and age allows, Notley ably captures the immediacy of youth's passion while offering her own dry-eyed interpretations of the events of a life lived close to the bone. Like the colorful collages she assembles from paper and other found materials, Notley erects structures of image and feeling to house the memories that swirl around her in the present.In their feverish, intelligent renderings of moments both precise and ephemeral, Notley's poems manage to mirror and transcend the times they evoke. Her profound tributes to the stages of her life and to the identities she has assumed--child, youth, lover, poet, wife, mother, friend, and widow--are remarkable for their insight and wisdom, and for the courage of their unblinking gaze.

Author: Alice Notley
ISBN-10: 0140588965
ISBN-13: 9780140588965
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Language: English
Published: 06/01/1998
Pages: 160
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.49lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.99w x 0.46d
Award: L.A. Times Book Prize - Winner

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/25/1998 pg. 83
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/1998 pg. 930
Publishers Weekly Best Books 01/01/1998 pg. 49
Publishers Weekly 05/26/1998