Selected Poems

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