"What Work Is" by Philip Levine, the new US poet laureate:
We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it’s someone else’s brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours of wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, “No,
we’re not hiring today,” for any
reason he wants….
Continued here. As a poet who often writes about the working class, Levine told Carolyn Kellogg:
I had thought that the worst collection of people was an English department having a meeting, but the U.S. Congress runs away with the award.
(Photo: Job seekers read pamphlets as they wait in line to have their resumes reviewed during the HIREvent job fair at the Doubletree Hotel on August 10, 2011 in San Jose, California. As the national unemployment rate sits at 9.1 percent, the labor department announced results of a Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey that showed nearly 3.1 million jobs were open at the end of June, a slight increase from May's upwardly revised 3.0 million. By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.)
The Dish 