In America

by Diana Goetsch

Diana Goetsch’s eighth collection of poems, her first since coming out as a trans woman, introduces us to another country, where an airport, a Starbucks, a family dinner are as confounding as the riddle of the Sphinx. Maybe the answers to how to navigate America are in plain sight, spelled out in a pop song or on a milk carton. Maybe we’re destined to be tumbleweed, “drifting from nowhere to nowhere” in no man’s land. Through it all, Goetsch remains who she’s always been—essentially a love poet, patrolling the shadowlands for what can be redeemed.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published December 1, 2017

About the author

Previously wrote under the name Douglas Goetsch.

Diana Goetsch is an American poet, author of eight collections, including In America (a 2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize selection), Nameless Boy (2015, Orchises Press) and The Job of Being Everybody, which won the 2004 Cleveland State University Poetry Center Open Competition. Her poems have appeared in leading magazines and anthologies including The New Yorker, Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review and Best American Poetry.

She is also a nonfiction writer and columnist, author of essays on subjects ranging from baseball history to medical ethics to political messaging. From 2015-16 she wrote the “Life in Transition” blog at The American Scholar, where she chronicled her gender transition, along with issues faced by America’s newest visible minority. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Donald Murray Prize for writing pedagogy, and a Pushcart Prize.

For 21 years she was a New York City public school teacher, at Stuyvesant High School, where she taught gifted and mostly immigrant children, and at Passages Academy in the Bronx, where she ran a creative writing program for incarcerated teens.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diana Goetsch does a wonderful job of putting us in the shoes of a trans woman finding her way around society...really opened my eyes to a perspective I have very little experience with.

[Alarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

(2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize Selection) This chapbook chronicles Goetsch’s experiences in coming to terms with being transgendered and society’s frequent inability to come to terms with it. The title poem starts the collection with a bang. After being searched at the airport, she says,

“I’m still waiting to hear about
the complaint I filed, the one that,

along with the viral video of them
repeatedly calling me “it,” shut down
the TSA website for three days

while they rewrote the rules about me…”

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a welcome directness in Diana Goetsch's poetry too often missing in contemporary verse. This is a writer who confronts her subjects head on and then goes deep, whether she's describing a "tranny bar" in NYC, an encounter with a TSA agent, or the end of a friendship. Even when she's more on the elusive side -- the powerful "Lock on My Door" or the intriguing "Sweet Boy" -- she's still creating powerful portraits that stir up very real emotions. Powerful stuff.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the runner-ups to the 2017 Rattle Chapbook prize.

Here are links to two poems I liked:

http://referentialmagazine.org/schnei...

http://referentialmagazine.org/waves-...

[Diana Iozzia · Rating 2 out of 5]

“In America”
Written by Diana Goetsch

I feel very uncomfortable rating this book, because I reached out to Diana herself to read and review her book. She was concerned that my taste in poetry and reading material might not fit the book she’s written. I’m sad to say that she’s a bit right.

Diana’s poetry is good, but it’s just not my type of writing, so please take my rating with a grain of salt. I didn’t like it, but I do not think it is a poorly written collection of poetry.
Diana speaks about very relevant topics in America today relating to members of the LGBT community: airport security, transportation, job stresses, and more. As a member of the community, I do try to understand all points of others and support others of the LGBT community. But because I do not consider myself to be transgender, and because I do not know many people who are, I do not personally relate to her poetry. I think it’s interesting to read, because I’m sure it is very relatable to people like her.

I think if you are interested in learning more about the trans community and reading perspectives of LGBT folks, this is a great collection for you. I haven’t read any other poetry collections I’ve come across from a member of the LGBT community, so thank you. Diana’s poetry are also very nostalgic and calming to read, as if they remind me a bit of my childhood.
I enjoyed the poems, “Bowie”, “Lock On My Door”, “The Waves”, “Schneider”, and especially “Irish Goodbyes”.

*I thank Diana Goetsch for sending a complimentary copy of the book to me for reviewing purposes”.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short collection, easily read aloud and discussed by the owner of Heirloom Books and myself in a couple of hours. The author, Diana Goetsch writes both as a male and as a trans female, the works apparently covering a broad period of time. Many, but not all, of the works contained focus on gender identity issues with wider reference to outsider statuses in general. Most of the pieces employ few poetic devices, but all read well and clearly as pithy short stories or scene sets. Many are quite (often ironically) funny.

[Luanne Castle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goetsch is well-known for writing 31 essays following her transition from male to female. These essays, called Life in Transition, are archived at The American Scholar at this link: https://theamericanscholar.org/diana-...#. In this poetry chapbook, Goetsch writes about a life in flux and shaped in part by her gender identity. The poems don’t seem to be in chronological order, and I was never sure at “what point” she was in her life, except by just going with the flow of the poem. When I read a poem near the end of the book where she called herself “a man / driving the Oklahoma panhandle,” I thought to myself, hmm, she clearly was a man there. But five lines later, she says, “I say a man. Back then I don’t know what / I would have said. I would have said tumbleweed.” These accessible, well-constructed poems bring the reader into the mutability of Goetsch’s past life.

[Nathaniel Horowitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

If all books drawing on the transgender experience are this good, I’ll be reading a lot more of them. I recently saw Diana read two poems from this collection. The first passage that registered as amazing was a brief and perfect description of Bowie’s voice. The second was a complex and puzzlingly charming shaggy-dog story about a turd in a shower stall in Dublin. Further poems in this collection range widely in theme but are always marked by compassion, sanity, and a clarity of expression that works against the erosion of truth in our current political climate. If it is true that, as Flaubert wrote, “The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy,” then the way to tolerate the Trump years might include losing oneself in the writing of this poet.

[Robin Sinclair · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In America" was everything I had ever hoped for after hearing that Diana Goetsch would be releasing a new chapbook. As with all of Goetsch's work, it was brutally real and poignant. Diana's transparency when describing how she views and interacts with the world around her (as well as through memory) has a way of evoking raw, intense emotion response. Her wit has only sharpened as her work has progressed, to which this chapbook is a testament. "In America" is a sometimes savage, sometimes actually-laugh-out-loud-funny (yes, at a poetry chap!) addition to Goetsch's already inspirational library of work.

[Frank Mundo · Rating 5 out of 5]

“In America” by Diana Goetsch, is amazing. I got it for free with my subscription to Rattle Magazine. I really enjoyed almost every poem in the collection. “Lock on my Door” was my favorite piece, but there were so many that are memorable. Check out this book or this author if you like really good narrative poems. The word genuine is what I would say best describes this work. It’s real. It’s strong. It’s something special.

[Kent Winward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accessible and at times poignant. I think I actually enjoyed this "Runner-Up" in the Rattle Chapbook prize, more than Taylor Mali's Whetting Stone. But does all poetry these days need a shtick? Suicide for Mali and transgender issues for Goetsch. To Goetsch's credit though, many of the poems fit thematically without going down the transgender route.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very powerful yet casual and direct poetry. I didn’t realize until after I finished reading that this is her first poetry collection after transitioning. Got this with my Rattle subscription and I think it’s better than the 2017 chapbook winner, just more of my style.

[Kenny Chaffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this chapbook with my Rattle subscription and all I can say is WOW!
Incredible and fresh poetry! I love it!

[Naomi Ayala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uniformly, one of the best books of poetry I read this year.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow..wow..wow!!! This is an incredible, powerful collection of poetry. I love Diana Goetsch's direct, honest style. It grabbed my attention, and held me, transfixed, from cover to cover. Again...wow!

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important collection of poems, beautifully crafted. For those who are not transgendered or may not know anyone in the community, this chapbook is a map of a heart that you should read.

[Brian Bruno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping, direct and honest. She doesn’t pull any punches and I love the writing.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diana Goetsch's poetry has always thrived on its directness, the way it lays out its subject matter quickly, sans obfuscation, to then open up the opportunity to deepen, to show us how context matters, or how the subject of a good poem always needs to be re-evaluated. Whether the subject is a transwoman Instagramming her name on the side of Starbucks cup, or a patient suddenly given a diagnosis of a month to live, Goetsch shows us the joy in small victories, or the challenge of deciding what's most worth your remaining time. Notable of course, for those who have known Diana's work for a long time, is her coming out, which may give these poems an added level of joy to them, and without doubt the keen eye that we've come to expect.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I glommed onto the fact that this chapbook was by and about a trans man turned woman, I thought, uh-oh, but I couldn’t stop reading. These poems are fresh and well-written, and I got to the end wanting more. My favorite is “The Fabric Factory, Circa 1987” about a bar where the non-hetero gather. Clearly it’s a home where they can be themselves, whether they’re drag queens, gay boys, cross-dressers or GG’s (genetic girls). As Goetsch describes all the various types seen there—“shemale prostitutes pumped full of bootleg silicone,” “drag queens from the midnight lip sync spectacle,” “weekend crossdressers “teetering on plastic heels like newborn colts,” I can see and love them all, aging GG that I am. The language flows, with a dollop of humor. Great chapbook.

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are a pretty tight set of poems along themes discussed in This Body I Wore. I especially enjoyed the title poem, which could well have been titled "ask the cats in Japan" about the experience of being scanned by the TSA as a trans woman. Elton John, Bowie, The Fabric Factory, her grooming high school teacher, all make appearances. And there's a few subject besides.

[Bill DeGenaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great opener: “If you’re ever in a fight with someone you love, / each of you holding the pistol of your dignity / to the other person’s temple...”

IN AMERICA is full of moments like this, moments of truth, anger, memory, and much more. Recommended.

[Emmett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked all the pieces that dealt with gender and identity. I enjoyed a few of the ones that didn’t too. I just don’t think this is the usual type of poetry I gravitate to.

[Catherine Conley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moving collection. Some really powerful poems. Worthwhile. My favorites: "Whole Lotta Love," "Elton John," "Fedora," and "Irish Goodbye"