rip. Ted. c.'81

Out of all Alice Notley’s poem, C. ’81, was the one I was able to relate the most so I decided to do a close reading of this poem. The poem is very sad and sort of angry at the same time as Notley explains her view of poor individuals. One quote that caught my attention when reading this poem was the last line, 

“I’m fucking lazy unskilled and you deserve your money”, the ‘I’ in this line being the poor individual.  I believe that Notley is doing a comparison between poor and rich people as she mentions that poor people normally look into borrowing money to buy pills while rich people have a habit of clothes, traveling, décor, and entertainment. I do not know if Notley was trying to imply anything when she said that poor people normally ask to borrow 5, 10, or 20 dollars and that rich people believe it’s to buy pill and she responds that pills is an expensive habit so I think that she is speaking about marijuana as those are the common prices of marijuana and is very accessible and inexpensive in the poor societies. Notley also through me off when she said that “I think of ’81, ’82 as rather ugly years casting cold shadows black against the sky of a sun disappearing” so I decided to research what if anything happened in those years and it turned out something did happen. Apparently Notley was married to Ted Berrigan, a poet like herself, who was dying of cirrhosis of the liver during those years which could be a reason why she states that years 81-82 were rather ugly. Ted Berringan died on July 1983. If this is the case it makes me wonder if this poem could actually be about her considering that if your loved one is in need of medical attention one would probably do and spend whatever it takes to make them better and because of this Notley probably because poor and ultimately having to work for the rich individuals. Nonetheless, her poems seem to tell a story as they all seem to be reflecting some sort of past. I believe the past she is reflecting is her own but that is up to interpretation. 

rip ted.