Reading Response: “April Not an Inventory but a Blizzard”

          In “April Not an Inventory but a Blizzard”, Alice Notley, the poet of the book Mysteries of small Houses, uses similar characteristics with her other poems in the handout. Some of these are included: sound, theme, structure and vocabulary words. All of her poems have similar themes which involves her life and her family, especially her husband “Ted”. Each of the poems helps to create one picture that portrays her life time. The poems are generally arranged in chronological order from meeting her husband that lived in Iowa City to living in New York after her husband's death. Even though “April Not an Inventory but a Blizzard”, in my opinion, did not have a lot of poetic sound compared to some other poems. It did have some rhythms, beats, and emotions like the other poems. Similar to one another, the readers can feel Notley’s emotions through each of her poems. As for structure, “April Not an Inventory but a Blizzard” has the same poetic structure with other poems included “Towards a Definition” and “The New York Human”. These poems are formed like a paragraphs but broken into a stanzas. For vocabulary words, Notley tends to use words that illustrate setting, colors, imagery and emotions such as the words  Iowa City, Chicago, blue, black, pain, and grief. Some of her words are simple; however, they have a deep meaning. She also writes in first person narrative as she used the word “I” in all of her poems.  In my opinion, “April Not an Inventory but a Blizzard” does not have a lot of technical sounds that can be observed. This poem has rhythm because every line has a beat in them. However, the sound did not go smoothly because of the way Notley forms her structure. For overall musicality, the tone and emotions of this poem is portrayed as happy and yet erratic because Notley’ emotions seem to be unpredictable which depended on her mind. Notley structures her poem with stanzas that can be view as a broken paragraph lines. One of the main ideas of using stanzas is that it makes the poem easier to read and understand. However, Notley’s structure impacts her sound as the poem does not sound smooth and feels kind of rough. In this poem, Notley uses allusion as her poetic technique when she mentions people, movie and etc., that included Raquel Welch and James Wright, Grease, and Tarzan. She also used repetition of the words “at” in her first stanza when she states, “…at two parties at the same house/ at the first…/…at girls that nigh; at the second/ …at an Arthur Murray’s (1-5).
          “April Not an Inventory but a Blizzard” is a poem portrays that Alice Notley and Ted Berrigan’s relationship as a lover. The beginning of the poems illustrate the beginning of their love life as they met and danced “fox-trot with dipping” (4). As the poems progressed, they illustrated the development of their love life which included her feelings, ted’s personality and their activities. Since Ted is older than the poet, he had experienced in life. The poem states: “He…takes pills/I take some a few months later and write/ he warns me about pills in a slantwise way See this/ nose? He say It’s the ruins of civilization /I notice some broken capillaries who cares” (23-28). This stanza indicates that both Alice and Ted were using drugs such as cocaine during their writing process. Even though they know the consequences of using drugs since it can ruin their health and life, they still used it as a way to get high and be alert so they can continue to write more works. This also foreshadows Ted’s death because he died from Cirrhosis of the liver which caused from overdose of drugs. The narrator also feels mindless and lack of self-identity since she doesn’t feel like who she used to be. Different than other people included me, the narrator wants to breathe and stay alive because of her wanting to write. She continued to live in a happy love life with ted and she even gives him “Dutch brooch Delft blue and white” which can be symbolized as her heart. The poem comes to an end when Ted went away to Europe and left a key to his library stores. Inside the room, the narrator can feel all the writing experienced in this room which finally led the narrator to create her own poetry. The text states: “…in Ted’s library/ which finally makes poetry possible for me but I’ve/ not read a voice like my own like my own will be” (43-45). The narrator feels that she never read other people works that is similar to her. Her work is unique and has her own voice. I think this topic is important to Alice Notley since this is an autobiographical poem. The poems are about her and the path the she has faced during her life time. The poems portray her love for her family. They also illustrate the feeling of love, struggle and pain from the perspective of a girl, wife and a mother. This poem portrays the social and philosophical implication. For the social implication, the poem illustrated the bad influence of people on using drugs as a gate way to achieve goals. As one can see, because of Ted’s influence, the narrator uses drugs as a gateway to continue with her writing. Even though their writing may be fuelled by the addiction to drugs, it took away the narrator’s self- identity and also Ted’s life. For philosophical implication, this poem taught me to learn from and be inspired by older people through their experience. Older people, like Ted who is older and already successful, can serve as role models for the narrator as he guided her to success. I also feels that famous people like many poets, authors, musicians, and artists tend to have a downfall, at some point in their lives, that can be a result from drugs. However, many people can find success in life despite failures.