Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams
Work is a defining element in the American ethos, along with what may seem like its opposite, freedom. The ladder up from poverty and oppression, work can also be an instrument of psychological and intellectual impoverishment and tyranny. The ethics and injustices of work, and the heroism of the labor movement, have long inspired writers. Now, in this watershed time when so many technological, geopolitical, and financial forces are eradicating American jobs and dismantling the old blue-collar world, writer and activist Liebler presents a mammoth, high-voltage anthology of American poems, songs, memoirs, and fiction about work and working-class lives. After a rousing introduction, Liebler reaches back to the late-nineteenth century and ventures into our digital present to assemble a unique chorus of voices and array of perspectives. Here are the clarion words of Woody Guthrie, Clifford Odets, Dorothy Day, Philip Levine, Li-Young Lee, Carlos Cortez, Wanda Coleman, and Bonnie Jo Campbell. Poet and activist Ed Sanders sums it up in a tribute to the Wobblies (the Industrial Workers of the World), when he writes, “Seize Power & Sing.” --Donna Seaman