In the PinesAlice Notley Alice Notley is considered by many to be among the most outstanding of living American poets. Notley's work has always been highly narrative, and her new book mixes short lyrics with long, expansive lines of poetry that often take the form of prose sentences, in an effort "to change writing completely." The title piece, a folksong like lament, makes a unified tale out of many stories of many people; the middle section, "The Black