Poetry. "The Great Pavement" and "The Ulterior Parkways," the two long poems that make up Michael Gottlieb's NEW YORK, each consist of sixty brief sections that are by turns elegant, direct, gritty, oblique. They offer the reader a completely refreshed sense and sensibility. Like an extended "exercize" in tonal breath control, the familiar sights and sounds and aspirations of city life pass through the author's prose, refracted in the light of his prismatic feeling for the cultivated languages, informational hums, whines and clatters of urban life. Beneath the cosmetic verities of the quotidian, Gottlieb assays the shadows of ambition, the underpainting of memory, the bone structure of history, the masks of humor. What emerges is a generalized portrait of a particular place, as much talk as take, as much savvy as cool, a cartographic thrust and parry rhythm flush with stories, wised-up with experience. As grainy as the dots of a tabloid photo, the sentences in Gottlieb's NEW YORK make attention specific. They give us back a place we only thought we knew.

New York

Literature & Fiction

Gottlieb, Michael

Poetry

The Figures

The River Road

Potes & Poets Press

Poetry. "I. The little death, first. There is no such thing as an emergency in the poetry world. Trained on. Like a third armpit. The advantage of the cordless model. You went and had all this shipped in. Promoting camaraderie. And didn't think to ask me if I needed any notions. DutyTour in a 'hot.' Deep enough so no one would notice. In fact, not foundationless red herrings. Play in traffic. I have dollars tonight. But closer approximations of what only a few new in actuality. Scram. Shove off. Go fan it. Major repairs. Get lost. Make like Houdini. A showCause order. In line. Somewhere in the Dominican Republic. Steak fries. The American plan. Purloined and subsequently repainted and furnished with new serial numbers, for the fourth time. An admit list in addition to a guest list. The almost vaudevillian realization that all thoseTightest paranoid fantasies. Beat it. Go take the air. All serving as witting dupes. Convection summary. The fickle incandescent. Devouring the characterization. Bought or sold, were. Take a walk. The techs and the temps. All walks of life. Basque cocktail lounge. The shame of God"—from NINETY-SIX TEARS.

Ninety-Six Tears (Roof XIII)

Roof Books

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Critical Writing. Responding to MEMOIR AND ESSAY Ron Silliman writes, "Michael Gottlieb saw it all, did it all & appears to have taken notes. MEMOIR AND ESSAY is a personal history of the evolution of Language poetry in New York City in the 1970s as viewed by one of its key innovators. Gottlieb's attention to detail & sensitivity to the interpersonal dynamics of the scene make this a crucial document for understanding progressive poetics in the late 20th century. Gottlieb's prose makes it a pleasure." Kasey Silem Mohammed adds, "A life in, of, and for poetry: Michael Gottlieb generously lays bare the one he has led, putting in plain terms the measures by which the discipline asserts itself as a constitutive force, a shaping regime of identity and counter-identity, community action and individual reflection. In his recounting of his own experience coming into poetry in 1970s New York, as well as his meditations on poet's work (the work of poetry itself and the work that poets do in the world), Gottlieb gives us an immensely valuable document in the annals of Language writing and contemporary literary autobiography generally."

Memoir and Essay

Biographies & Memoirs

Regional U.S.

Faux Press

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. "We sit in our rooms. We write. We try to read. It begins to grow dark. We switch on the light. We wait for the world to come to us. Or, we don't. We start asking ourselves questions. Others arrive unbidden. One of the questions: what kind of jobs do we, should we, as poets, end up with while we do our real job?"

What We Do

Chax Press

Poetry. "LOST AND FOUND is a read-this-&-change-your-life experience: the first great poetic work to emerge from the trauma of September 11. Imagine Frank O'Hara channeling Theodor Adorno with more than a little Marcel Duchamp to modulate the static into a whitenoise reverb feedback loop. It is, in fact, just like that & completely different: three radical works that test our limits as readers & as people. Michael Gottlieb's masterwork is one terrific book"-- Ron Silliman. Michael Gottlieb was born in the Bronx. He is the author of fourteen books of poetry, including NINETY-SIX TEARS and GORGEOUS PLUNGE, also available from SPD.

Lost and Found

United States

About the Author\nMichael Gottlieb is a poet and the author of twenty-one books. In addition to numerous collections of poetry, his published work also includes memoirs and essays. His most recent titles are MOSTLY CLEARING (Roof Books, 2019), WHAT WE DO: ESSAYS FOR POETS (Chax Press, 2016), I HAD EVERY INTENTION (Faux Press, 2014), DEAR ALL (Roof Books, 2013), Letters to A Middle Aged Poet (Otoliths, 2012), The Dust (Roof Books, 2011), MEMOIR AND ESSAY (Faux Press, 2010). A first- generation member of the Language Poetry school, he helped edit one of its foundational magazines, Roof. He was also the publisher of Case/Casement Books (1981-1999) and started the Last Tuesday multi-media performance series at La Mama in NYC in the 1980s. 
Several of his works have also been adapted for the stage, including excerpts from MOSTLY CLEARING, adapted by Genée Coreno and The Dust , his authoritative 9/11 poem which the dramatist Fiona Templeton staged at the St. Marks Poetry Project on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. In addition, in the fall of 2021, for the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, a new version of The Dust , directed by Genée Coreno was staged along with an adaptation of The Voices , also staged by Genée Coreno, both under the auspices of The Poetry Project.\n"At last! The essential Michael Gottlieb in one volume. For decades, Gottlieb's publications and live readings have been accruing admirers from vanguardist writing communities nationwide. From his beginnings as a lexical atomicist to his later staged documentary pieces, this extensive collection will prove Gottlieb to be one of the most forensic poets of our time. Whether closely examining the radical uncertainty of privately lived phenomenon or tracking the nano-moments of accidental public encounters, these works brim with a wit and quirkiness that's sure to thrill brow-furrowed scholars, roustabout flaneurs, and solitary text trippers in equal measure."-- Rodrigo Toscano 
"With a sardonic, razor-edged critique, Michael Gottlieb takes to task (and to heart) the irritants and menaces of quotidian late-capital social life. His forte is to lay bare and examine human fallibility, vulnerability and instability. A momentary clearing is created post-fallout where the ultimate pathos of subjectivity and ego have room to transform. The stakes are high. What does it mean to be a poet, citizen, resident of planet Earth? Throughout his work, he probes all psychic and theoretical valances. Gottlieb's oeuvre is myriad--the forms the writings take diverse. His Selected Poems spans from late 1970's work based on chance operations, to recent collaged writings. Now is the necessary hour to challenge the status quo, something Gottlieb has been doing conscientiously for half a century. I am awed by the substantive meanings that reverberate sonically throughout this collection." 
-- Brenda Iijima 
Poetry

Selected Poems

Gottlieb defends the necessity of poetry and why poets matter. "Michael Gottlieb's Socratically-canted essays, all formally addressed to poets, should keep you up at night, even if you're not a poet. There are no answers here, only inquiries that increase exponentially by the asking. The questions Gottlieb pose range from the embarrassing (what might our responsibilities to other poets be?) to the confounding (what is the role of love in our work?). Each question opens out into more questions that should be considered, even meditated upon. "I'd argue," he ventures, "listening is the beginning." The world has changed so much in the twelve years since the first of these writings were published but, still it seems, listening (wedded to an honest ask) may be the truest activism."--Sharon Mesmer Literary Nonfiction. Poetry. Essay. Poetics.

Collected Essays

Essays & Correspondence

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Books by Gottlieb, Michael