{"id":1198,"date":"2015-02-20T00:00:16","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T05:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=1198"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:49:38","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:49:38","slug":"feb-20-wage-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2015\/02\/20\/feb-20-wage-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Feb 20 – wage work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday February 20 \u00a0\u2014 \u00a0Philip Levine \u00a0Detroit poet and US Poet Laureate \u00a0(+\u00a0\u00a0Feb 14, 2015 \u00a0age 87, \u00a0U.S. Poet Laureate 2011 & 2012)<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Thanks for giving him more recognition. Great poet. This will sound like a ‘bot’ but having lived in Detroit for many years, his work really spoke to me… far more than most of these ‘poet laureates’ who tend to do riffs on ‘walks in the woods with the dog\u2019.\u201d \u00a0(J C Harris comment NPR \u00a0Feb 16)<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been noticing a change in the wind about wage work in the U.S. \u00a0For a while now the settled truth in some readings of the direction of U.S. history put wage work, hourly pay, moving off in the rear view mirror; \u00a0off to South East Asia or Mexico. \u00a0In the US everybody does desk work with a large, medium, small or tiny digital screen and keyboard. \u00a0So it sometimes seems.<\/p>\n

But lately, you can read of manufacturing jobs coming back to the U.S., to recognition of skilled hands and not just skilled algorithms, as being important here. \u00a0 \u00a0You can read more and more about income inequality and the decades-long squeeze on hourly wages. \u00a0 Even Walmart begins to recognize that it takes a hit when the wide world perceives a Walmart job as a dead end. \u00a0Philip Levine\u2019s death on Valentine\u2019s Day (cancer, age 87 \u2013 U.S. Poet Laureate 2011-12) and multiple readings of his iconic poem, \u201cWhat Work Is,\u201d opens a moment to notice stagnant wage work, undocumented sweat shop factory workers, and major labor unrest along the US Pacific coast. \u00a0Here\u2019s a piece from this morning\u2019s Crain\u2019s Detroit Business that offers a snapshot. http:\/\/www.crainsdetroit.com\/article\/20150220\/NEWS01\/150229998\/u-s-unions-poised-for-comeback-as-wages-stall-rich-get-richer<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cLabor unrest.\u201d \u00a0 Bad news for the nation which hankers for an orderly and predictable daily order? \u00a0Maybe not. \u00a0Maybe unrest is the fruit of paying attention and the birth place of a living culture. \u00a0Giving birth is bloody and exhausting and the source of all our grace.<\/p>\n

Sermonizing today. \u00a0Philip Levine stirs the blood I guess. \u00a0 He reminds me that all around this campus women and men work like hell. \u00a0Makes me proud to work here too.<\/p>\n

Have a good weekend.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

PS \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0After the print version of the poem, you can click on a link to listen to Levine read it.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post:\u00a0What Work Is<\/strong><\/p>\n

We stand in the rain in a long line
\nwaiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
\nYou know what work is\u2014if you\u2019re
\nold enough to read this you know what
\nwork is, although you may not do it.
\nForget you. This is about waiting,
\nshifting from one foot to another.
\nFeeling the light rain falling like mist
\ninto your hair, blurring your vision
\nuntil you think you see your own brother
\nahead of you, maybe ten places.
\nYou rub your glasses with your fingers,
\nand of course it\u2019s someone else\u2019s brother,
\nnarrower across the shoulders than
\nyours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
\nthat does not hide the stubbornness,
\nthe sad refusal to give in to
\nrain, to the hours of wasted waiting,
\nto the knowledge that somewhere ahead
\na man is waiting who will say, \u201cNo,
\nwe\u2019re not hiring today,\u201d for any
\nreason he wants. You love your brother,
\nnow suddenly you can hardly stand
\nthe love flooding you for your brother,
\nwho\u2019s not beside you or behind or
\nahead because he\u2019s home trying to
\nsleep off a miserable night shift
\nat Cadillac so he can get up
\nbefore noon to study his German.
\nWorks eight hours a night so he can sing
\nWagner, the opera you hate most,
\nthe worst music ever invented.
\nHow long has it been since you told him
\nyou loved him, held his wide shoulders,
\nopened your eyes wide and said those words,
\nand maybe kissed his cheek? You\u2019ve never
\ndone something so simple, so obvious,
\nnot because you\u2019re too young or too dumb,
\nnot because you\u2019re jealous or even mean
\nor incapable of crying in
\nthe presence of another man, no,
\njust because you don\u2019t know what work is.<\/p>\n

Philip Levine, \u201cWhat Work Is\u201d from What Work Is. Copyright \u00a9 1992 by Philip Levine. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.<\/p>\n

To listen to the poem and the poet, click the play button below:<\/p>\n\nhttps:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2015\/02\/What-Work-Is-Philip-Levine.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday February 20 \u00a0\u2014 \u00a0Philip Levine \u00a0Detroit poet and US Poet Laureate \u00a0(+\u00a0\u00a0Feb 14, 2015 \u00a0age 87, \u00a0U.S. Poet Laureate 2011 & 2012) “Thanks for giving him more recognition. Great poet. This will sound like a ‘bot’ but having lived … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1198"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1203,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198\/revisions\/1203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}