Support for Douglas Rothschild’s Recovery

On Thursday the 29th of December 2022, our dear friend Douglas “Dug” Rothschild experienced a catastrophic medical situation. His aorta was torn near his heart, leaking blood and severely reducing circulating oxygen. It was necessary to undergo open heart surgery to close the hole and repair the nearby damage. After a couple of stressful weeks, Douglas began physical therapy to learn to use a wheelchair. Everyone is impressed with how hard he is working to recover, but it will be a long journey. He will have to move to a nursing home for the next year while he continues physical and occupational therapy. Douglas will not be able to keep his current apartment, and his belongings (including his enormous book collection) must be packed and put into storage. This fundraiser will help with the cost of movers, monthly storage, and the medical expenses which his health insurance may not cover or cover fully.

Eventually, when Douglas is safely recovered, any remaining money will be used to help him rent an apartment and return his belongings from storage.

Douglas is a beloved and respected member of the NYC/ Albany poetry community. For decades, he volunteered to curate and host the legendary Zinc Bar Reading Series in the West Village. He also hosted poetry readings in Albany and volunteered at the Boston Poetry Marathon and Saint Mark’s Poetry Project. As Anselm Berrigan writes in his blurb for Rothchild’s book Theogony : “A poet whose independence and observational precision are, for me, unparalleled within the art. Rothschild is a poet of emphasis, analysis, opinion, argument, outrage, anguish, personality, friendship and deep feeling. His walking, talking line, freer within its various formal constraints (Dug is a master of the long poem made of short poems) than any surface-of-the-moment, sounds like no one else."

Any amount is appreciated. Please share if you can.