BIO:
Michael Gottlieb is the author of more than a dozen titles. Lost and Found is his newest title (Roof Books). His other recent books include Gorgeous Plunge (Roof Books), and More Than All (Tongue To Boot), a collaboration with Ted Greenwald. One of the central first-generation Language poets, Gottlieb helped edit the seminal Roof Magazine through the 80s. He presently lives in Northwest Connecticut with his wife and two children.

EXCERPT:

IN THE SERVICE OF

As we gather in the Ascending Rooms,

we’ve somehow decided this was sufficient,

we’ve enough to go to market with —

a bygone imposture,
a hissing gauge,
a pending defalcation,
a good poke

            — that’s all that’s usually called for.

I do not do much.
it is my shame.
but this much,
I will not do for you.

That beckoning, benevolent virus inside us all —

like an imposture of authorial cramp,

all that craven rewriting.