Alice Notley, a spring 2020 Lenna Visiting Professor at St. Bonaventure University, will read from her acclaimed poetry during her March residency at St. Bonaventure University and Jamestown Community College.

In addition to visiting classes in SBU’s English Department, Notley will read her work on:

• Tuesday, March 10, at 6:30 p.m. at St. Bonaventure’s Reilly Center Hall of Fame. She’ll be joined by her son, poet Anselm Berrigan.
• Monday, March 16, at noon in the Weeks Gallery, located in the Sheldon Center on the Jamestown Campus.

The events are free and open to the public.

Notley has become one of America’s greatest living poets. She has long written in narrative, epic and genre-bending modes to discover new ways to explore the nature of the self and the social and cultural importance of disobedience. The artist Rudy Burckhardt once wrote that Notley may be “our present-day Homer.”

Notley is the author of over 40 books of poetry, including “165 Meeting House Lane” (1971), “Phoebe Light” (1973), “Incidentals in the Day World” (1973), “For Frank O’Hara’s Birthday” (1976), “Alice Ordered Me to Be Made: Poems 1975” (1976), “Dr. Williams’ Heiresses” (1980), “How Spring Comes” (1981), which received the San Francisco Poetry Award, “Waltzing Matilda” (1981), “Margaret & Dusty” (1985), “From a Work in Progress” (1988), “Homer’s Art” (1990), “To Say You” (1993), “Selected Poems of Alice Notley” (1993), and “The Descent of Alette” (1996), among many others.

“Mysteries of Small Houses” (1998) won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and her collection “Disobedience” (2001) was awarded the Griffin International Poetry Prize.

Notley’s recent work includes “From the Beginning” (2004), “Alma, or the Dead Women” (2006), “Grave of Light: New and Selected Poems 1970-2005,” which received the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, “In the Pines” (2007), “Culture of One” (2011), “Songs and Stories of the Ghouls” (2011), “Benediction” (2015), and “Certain Magical Acts” (2016).

Her newest book, “For the Ride,” will be published by Penguin in early March; copies will be available for sale at the readings.

Active in the New York poetry scene of the 1960s and ’70s, Notley is often identified with the Second Generation New York School poets, though her work resists any period classification.

Berrigan is the author of eight books of poetry and numerous chapbooks. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University at Buffalo and his master of fine arts degree from Brooklyn College.

The Lenna Endowed Visiting Professorship, established in 1990, is funded through gifts from the late Betty S. Lenna Fairbank and Reginald A. Lenna of Jamestown. It is designed to bring scholars of stature in their field to St. Bonaventure University and Jamestown Community College for public lectures.

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. In 2019, St. Bonaventure was named the #1 regional university value in New York and #2 in the North by U.S. News and World Report.