Gary Galsworth

Gary Galsworth was born and grew up in the New York City area. He spent three years in the Marine Corps before attending the Art Institute of Chicago and University of Chicago, majoring in painting and, later, in film making. He made a number of films during the late 1960s and 70s.

Along the way, he learned the plumbing trade, initially to support his film work (I couldn’t drive my cab one more night). He worked with Philip Glass and other artist/plumbers in that hotbed of creativity that was NYC of that time. Eventually he became a Master Plumber, moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, with his family, and started a plumbing business.

“It was very hard but very necessary. Business and plumbing made me get real about day-to-day life. Before that experience, I was in dreamland. It taught me to show up for the day I was actually in.”

Gary became a student of Zen Practice in the 70s and has continued on this path of practice. Poetry began as a quiet aside. One of his oldest poems, “Winter’s Passing,” is from 1964.

Nothing Itself is his third book of poems. His poetry has been published in many literary journals, including Broad River Review, Pennsylvania English, Litbreak Magazine, and Obsidian, to name a few.

Gary has two children—his daughter, Ondine, and his son, Daniel; both live in the NYC area. Gary lives in Hoboken, spends a good part of his time in an old house in Long Branch on the Jersey Shore, and travels regularly—sometimes to meditation retreats and often to Providence, Rhode Island to see his fiancée, Carol, a nurse practitioner in a clinic there.

Gary Galsworth can be reached at: gdplumber@aol.com