A major new book-length visionary poem from a writer whose poems are
among the major astonishments of contemporary poetry (Robert Polito, the
Poetry Foundation)
Alice Notley has become one of the most highly regarded figures in
American poetry, a master of the visionary mode acclaimed for
genre-bending, book-length poems of great ambition and adventurousness.
Her newest book, For the Ride, is another such work. The protagonist,
One, is suddenly within the glyph, whose walls project scenes One can
enter, and One does so. Other beings begin to materialize, and it seems
like they (and One) are all survivors of a global disaster. They board a
ship to flee to another dimension; they decide what they must save on
this Ark are words, and they gather together as many as are deemed fit
to save. They sail and meanwhile begin to change the language they are
speaking, before disembarking at an abandoned future city.