WCW – Douglas Goetsch

Wednesday, July 1, 2015, 7 p.m.

Williams Center for the Arts
One Williams Plaza, Rutherford NJ

Plus the words of William Carlos Williams
and open readings from the floor

Contact: John Barrale – john.barrale@gmail.com

DOUGLAS GOETSCH is the author of seven volumes of poems, most recently Nameless Boy (2015, Orchises Press). His writing has appeared in many of the leading journals, including The New Yorker, Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, The American Scholar, The Southern Review and Best American Poetry. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Pushcart Prize, and the Donald Murray prize for non-fiction writing. He resides in New York City, is a renowned writing teacher, and is the founding editor of Jane Street Press. Visit him at www.douglasgoetsch.com

from Joe’s Tax

Are we ever more innocent than when doing taxes?
I’m not talking about how we rob the country
by deducting the case of Alpo we bought on Take

Your Dog To Work day, but just the helpless
look on our faces, the week-end in early spring
we’re hunkered down at a desk or kitchen table

strewn with receipts and instructions
from a government so much bigger than us,
hovering in space like a circle of priests…