Hit play below to hear Charles Gabel read his series “Essay on Money” and scroll down for the full text. “Essay on Money” is featured in MQR’s Summer 2020 issue.
Essay on Money
As a practicing physician, William Carlos Williams is possibly the poet most famously to have had a non-poet job. In his career as a physician, he did not depend on his poetry for professional standing, though he did have an enviable literary career, publishing not only poetry, much of which is now widely anthologized, but also fiction and translations. After sustaining a dog bite in 2016 C.E., I received a bill totaling $411.28 from TriHealth for Emergency Room Services, and soon thereafter I received a bill for Emergency Evaluation and Management Services, totaling $317 from Qualified Emergency Specialists Incorporated, a medical staffing agency with a P.O. box address in Oklahoma City. My scars were valued at $728.28 (51.6 hours of my labor). After forwarding these bills to my insurance company for consideration under my employer’s high deductible health plan, Qualified Emergency Specialists’s bill decreased to $121.07, and TriHealth’s bill increased to $1,028.21. My scars are currently valued at $1,149.28 (81.44 hours of my labor). The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Vol. 1: 1909–1939 costs $27.95 (1.98 hours). The head of Orpheus retains no monetary value.
To read more Essays on Money from Charles Gabel, you can purchase a Summer 2020 Issue.
