Publisher's Synopsis
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.
