What We Do

How do we live our lives as poets? In these three critical essays Michael Gottlieb addresses issues faced by us all, even if we are not poets or artists. In Jobs of The Poets he asks: what kind of work do we find ourselves doing while we try to do our real work? In Letters to a Middle Aged Poet he asks: what happens when you’ re a young avant garde poet, or artist, or simply young, and you wake up one day to realize you’ re not young any more (and maybe not avant garde)? In A Spectre is Haunting the Poetry World he asks: what kind of world have we bequeathed to the young, in the wake of the Great Recession? Lastly, in an Author’ s Afterword he reflects on the current racistlanguage controversy embroiling the US poetry community.

About the Author :
Michael Gottlieb is a poet and the author of twentythree books of poetry, essays and memoir. His latest book is Collected Memoirs, published by Chax Press in November, 01/01/2023. Collected Memoirs is published as the third volume in a uniform edition by Chax, joining Collected Essays (March 01/01/2023) and Selected Poems, (01/01/2021). Other recent titles include Mostly Clearing (Roof, 01/01/2019) What We Do: Essays for Poets (01/01/2016, Chax Press), I Had Every Intention (01/01/2014, Faux Editions), Dear All (01/01/2013, Roof Books), Letters to A Middle Aged Poet (01/01/2012, Otoliths), The Dust (2011, Roof Books), Memoir and Essay (01/01/2010, Faux/Other). A firstgeneration member of the Language Poetry school, he helped edit one of its foundational magazines, Roof. He was also the publisher of Case/Casement Books (19811999) and started the Last Tuesday multimedia performance series at La MaMa in NYC in the 1980s. A number of his works have been adopted for the stage, notably at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’ s in New York City. In Septemer 2011, the director Fiona Templeton staged THE DUST, her dramatization of his long 9/11 poem of the same name, at St. Mark’ s to mark the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. In November 01/01/2019, coinciding with the publication of Mostly Clearing, his sixth book from Roof Books, the Poetry Project produced the play IS THIS CLEAR ENOUGH?, created and directed by Gené e Coreno, based on Mostly Clearing. In November 01/01/2023 the Poetry Project served for the third time as the producer for a dramatization of his work, presenting, in the church’ s Sanctuary, I AM ANGRY AT A FORCE I CANNOT SEE: BASED ON THE POETRY OF MICHAEL GOTTLIEB, a staged adaptation of ‘ The Voices’ , his long poem about Covid and NYC, and ‘ The Dust’ . This production was directed by Chana Porter, with sound and music by Rohan Chander, video by ray ferreira and was made possible with the generous support of the AxeHoughton Foundation. The performances coincided with the publication of his Collected Memoirs. Ron Silliman called ‘ The Dust,’ when it first appeared in print in 2003, “ the first great poetic work to emerge from the trauma of September 11.” Eileen Myles has written that the body of Gottlieb’ s work focuses "much like the narrator does in Robert Musil’ s epic the 'Man Without Qualities,’ on the difficult moment in which one faces one’ s culture and understands… what it is to be a man." His firstpublished memoir, Memoir and Essay, was described by the poet Elizabeth Fodaski as “ doing for New York in the 70s what A Movable Feast did for Paris in the 20s.” Gottlieb was born in the Bronx and grew up in Westchester County, NY. He graduated from Bennington College where he studied poetry and painting. He’ s worked for a private detective agency and in business affairs for Warner Bros. Inc. He founded a start up and most recently served as Vice President, Digital Insight and Chief Research Expert for the global software company SAP. He divides his time between New York City and Connecticut.