a family of poets

 

i recently learned of the death of alice notley.  she is without a smidgen of doubt one of our greatest poets & citizens in our international republic of poetry.  there are many many fine memorials & obituaries recently published about notley, her poems, her person, & her great impact on the world of letters.  but let me add to this photo of ted berrigan, alice notley & anselm & edmund berrigan.  because it is my favorite of all the pictures i have seen of all four remarkable poets.  i can relate to a little bit because the youngest berrigans are from my generation & i can see a toy millennium falcon behind them!  yet it is the homeliness of this scene.  family & poetry all found in one frame.  a proof that poetry & the ordinary life of domestic bohemia are not antithetical to each other.  i don't mean life in all its forms is living easy.  but i do mean life & art are woven from the same cloth. 

let us praise the poet alice notley!!!