Being Reflected Upon

Alone in 2017 Paris and completing treatment for her first recurrence of breast cancer, Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize winner Notley (For the Ride) decided to investigate how her life had unfolded since 2000, when husband Doug Oliver died. In true Notley style, what results is a veritable fountain of thoughts and reflections (because “loopy I mean zany / vision’s interesting”), with sentences often breaking off midstream and redirecting (“Have you forsythia proven John Forsythe / in the driven to remember rain or snow I’m sinking / syntax by vibe, okay?”). This is no stately meditation but an astonishing rush of remembrance, with multiple flashpoints captured as sensuous moment, and it’s a wonder to weave through her life, from her seeing a Greek play in Paris (“I cannot be the chorus the com- / munity I reject the concept though / there you are”) to affecting recall of the deaths of Oliver and Notley’s mother. Throughout, bits and particles fly, like the colored glass fragments of a kaleidoscope, and she reassembles them into not-narratives, as she’s not interested in traditional stories. But as one of those specks, she also embraces the whole world: “I a micropoint in the wind that I am also.”