Mysteries of Small Houses: Writing & Disobeying with Alice Notley Masterclass
Absolutely Alice; write un-pin-downable poetry inspired by the classic Notley collection
‘Poverty much maligned but beautiful
has resulted in smaller houses replete with mysteries’
– Alice Notley
The late Alice Notley published more than 40 volumes of poetry over her lifetime and defiantly refused to be labelled any kind of poet. In a 2014 interview she emphatically says, “Oh I’m pigeon-holed all the time…I am second-generation New York School, or I am the poet that lives in Paris, I am feminist, or I am the person defined by having loved Ted Berrigan or Douglas Oliver, I am personal, I am not personal, I am a poet of grief, etc, etc. Mostly, I just keep writing in whatever way I want to next…’
This master course will invite you to write in a ‘whatever way’, and equally discover Notley’s 1987 collection, Mysteries of Small Houses. You will read and respond to several of Notley’s poems in the collection and write through them as a way to encounter your own dynamics with voice, form, architecture, empty spaces, thresholds and ghosts.
The course is an opportunity to celebrate Alice Notley’s life and boundary defying voice and engage in her appetite for experimentation. Notley has made an outstanding contribution to contemporary poetry. The course promises to honour the once ‘present day Homer’ and her contribution to what poetry can be. It offers an exciting entanglement of getting close and ‘disobedient’ with Notley’s work. You will produce your own poems that draw on the ideas in hers, ‘A poem must be of its times without giving in to them/ A poem must be better than its times as/a self must be…’
You do not have to be familiar with Notley’s work or have read the collection. The encounter with Alice Notley’s poems should be as surprising, complex, and open ended as Notley’s work herself. Like Notley, your writing will refuse to be defined but will foreground a deep engagement with your experience and what it has to say about whatever you need to hear.
Masterclasses are an expanded version of our International Courses, with a much deeper consideration of technical craft and critical theory. These 12-week courses (maximum 12 places) are for advanced students only, and fluency with poetic language and ideas will be assumed. There are no live chats and they are suitable for UK and International students.
Concessions & Accessibility
To apply for a concession rate, please send relevant documentation showing your eligibility for one of our concessions to [email protected]. Conditions of eligibility are detailed here. If you have any questions or wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, please email [email protected].
What to Expect
Please check the left hand side of this page for information on how this course works in practice, under the heading ‘Course Style‘. If you’re unsure as to what any of the terms there mean, or if this course is a good fit for you, please visit our What to Expect page which includes some further information on how our courses function.
Image credit: @impatrickt
About Agnieszka Studzinska 
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Dr Agnieszka Studzińska has a PhD in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway University of London. Her thesis explores the poetry of Carolyn Forché, Alice Notley, and Mei Mei Berssenbrugge in their approach to the image of the house. She also holds an MA in Creative Writing from the UEA. Her debut collection, Snow Calling was shortlisted for the London New Poetry Award 2010. Her second collection, What Things Are is published by Eyewear Publishing (2014). Her most recent collection is called Branches of a House (Shearsman Books 2021). She is interested in the practice of the creative critical, and all matters exploring boundaries, architectural spaces, and migration. She is currently working on her fourth collection and teaches creative writing for The Poetry School, among other educational institutions.
"As an American, I especially appreciated the Poetry School for making courses available online and structured in such a way that I could participate and learn with a diverse group of other English speakers."
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