There is a mind I don't want to be in

That's a line from "This Plot," a poem in Alice Notley's In The Pines. I can't imagine what it would be like to be in her mind. Reading her is like entering a whole other dimension. It's destabilizing and dazzling.

Her language is constantly expressing and undermining identity and narrative in a way that is thoroughly disorienting. But that disorientation becomes grounding, the site of intimacy.

Using shattered and re-constituted language to get beyond the parameters of language, the conventions of self-hood, the familiarity of narrative, the burdens of dialogue, she allows her readers to enter the most unique, sometimes frightening, sometimes elusive linguistic plane. It is haunting; it is ever out of reach. It is why she is one of the most important poets writing today.

I have to admit, as much as I am lauding the "destabilizing" qualities of her work, I also find it difficult. I get lost and alienated in it. My concentration, accustomed as it is to those conventions, dependent as it is, falters. I find myself in a sea of disembodied words, voices I don't recognize. But it is okay. Definitely worth it. And, there is a weird way where everything she does linguistically, poetically, creates a completely unique and uncomfortable sense of intimacy. You are inside something. Someone?

"Yellow flower, don't get jealous of her."