Surrender to the Body: An Interview With Dana Goetsch

Diana Goetsch. Photo by Svetlana Jovanovic

Diana Goetsch is the author of eight collections of poetry and the “Life in Transition” blog at The American Scholar. McKenzie Wark talked to Goetsch about gender transition, writing through the body, New York nightlife, and her new memoir, This Body I Wore (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, May 2022).

McKenzie: You were an established writer as a poet before you transitioned. How did that change your writing?

Diana: In poems, the only real event is the poem’s effect on the reader. Transitioning, coming out, writing more prose—my . . .