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This is a poetry collection by the American poet Alice Notley. This book is prefaced by the death of Notley's father. Notley wrote this book when she was living in Chicago with her husband, Ted Berrigan. Alice Ordered Me To Be Made focuses on the themes of death, movement, and individuality.

This book was published by the Yellow Press in 1975. The publication of this book was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Some of the poems in this poem have appeared in the following magazines: Big Sky, Here It Is, Milk Quarterly, Out There, Brilliant Corners, and The Reader.

Alice Ordered To Be Made is prefaced by the death of Notley's father. In the first section of the book, "A Suite of 9 Poems", Notley says "Near my father dying in hospital April 1975." The nine poems in this section are connected by the concept of movement. Notley incorporates images of movement throughout this section, and boats are the main symbol that she uses to show movement. Since Notley incorporates boats into many of her works, the boats could potentially represent Notley in addition to showing movement. The syntax in this book is another source that Notley uses to create this sensation of movement, and she is also uses it to allow readers to experience specific sensations and emotions intended by her deliberate arrangement of words. Each of the poems in this book is like a separate painting, and the entire book is like a gallery. To be able to experience the effects that Notley intends for the reader to experience, it is important to focus on each poem as a whole and the book as a whole rather than focusing on individual lines.

       O me being me 
                    designed
     to satisfy the gods feeling it
     need not know it that
     every experience is a mystical
     one
         the sun
     shines the lamp shines the Albers
     glows
     -"Endless Day"

Throughout the book, she places emphases on the concept of "I" and her individuality. In this excerpt from "Endless Day", Notley begins by saying, "O me being me." In "Ode, Tuesday Late", she says "And I am a meadow of grace / I am a mechanical time and mine." Notley explores the concept of what it means to remain an individual as a part of a family or artistic lineage. She mentions various artists such as John Covert, Marlon Brando, and Joseph Albers in this book and incorporates light as a symbol of consciousness and self-discovery. In "Ode, Tuesday Late", she says "Universe my blood's own thought retinal light". By the phrase "retinal light", she is referring to the process of discovering herself. Even in this excerpt, Notley mentions various sources of light such as the sun and a lamp.

The only published review of Alice Ordered Me To Be Made is by Art Lange. This review was published by the Chicago Review. In this review, Art Lange characterizes the poems in this book as "photographs of (Notley's) existence" and describes them are being "Impressionistic because of her involvement of self". He quotes various lines from the poems in this book and goes into detail about the meaning of these lines and the various techniques used by Notley. He concludes the review by saying that "the singer's voice and the poet's sensibility of Alice Notley are both individual, and rare." ^[1]

Notley's PennSound Page with recordings from Alice Ordered Me To Be Made

Alice Notley's Wikipedia Page

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