The Job of Being Everybody (CSU Poetry) (CSU Poetry) [Paperback]

Douglas Goetsch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2003

The gritty naturalism of these poems would qualify them as "anti-lyrical" were it not for the mix of sweet nostalgia and bitter truth that gives them their pungent, winning flavor. It's hard to imagine a reader who could reisit Goetsch's seductive opening lines. -- Billy Collins

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Douglas Goetsch is, without a doubt, an unbridled creative talent. His pinpoint lyricism and apparent reverence for craft stamp his work with a gorgeous signature, and he just gets better with every outing. These are poems of desire and disappointment, the magnificent and the mundane -- and in Goetsch's capable clutches, each one leaves an electric charge in the air. This is no misty-eyed look at where poetry has been or where it's going. The Job of Being Everybody is where poetry should be, where it should have been all along." --Patricia Smith

"The gritty naturalism of these poems would qualify them as 'anti-lyrical' were it not for the mix of sweet nostalgia and bitter truth that gives them their pungent, winning flavor. It's hard to imagine a reader who could resist Goetsch's seductive opening lines." --Billy Collins

"Douglas Goetsch's autobiographical poetry is so consistently bleak, I'm not quite sure why I so often find it moving. I guess partly because the poetry seems so free from baloney, and because there is a sweetness down inside Goetsch's insistence on the factual." --Mark Halliday

About the Author

Douglas Goetsch is the author of Nobody's Hell (1999, Hanging Loose Press) and three prizewinning chapbooks. His honors include the Paumanok Award, a Prairie Schooner Reader's Choice Award, and two New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellowships. Goetsch is a veteran New York City public high school teacher, currently teaching creative writing in incarcerated teens at Passages Academy in the Bronx.

Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: Cleveland State U Poetry Center (August 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880834626
• ISBN-13: 978-1880834626
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 4.8 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,156,626 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Insights, February 29, 2008

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K. Casey (Northern California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Job of Being Everybody (CSU Poetry) (CSU Poetry) (Paperback)

The Job of Being Everybody was a phenomenal read. Concise imagery, very accessible, nostalgic, lyrical, human, and I am personally jealous of the great title. Read it, damn it!