In this, Maggie Nelson's phd thesis on the Women of the New York School, she has a great chapter on Alice Notley, from which I have gleaned the following quotes: 

Alice Notley as quoted and channeled by Maggie Nelson: 

"Notley privileges the play of gender performativity, along with a long standing belief that cross-gender identification is a central aspect of being a poet: “I used to have this whole girl theory of poets, that all poets are essentially girls, and especially all the ones I related to, and that was what made all male poets different from other men. . I think that men who are poets have to be in touch with their girl selves in order to be good poets, and I'm beginning to think its' my responsibility as a woman poet to be in touch with my male aspects in order to work properly." 
from an Interview with Ed Foster, Summer 1987