Introduction
I received more than 3,600 poetry submissions for this project, which means, yes, this anthology about work was a lot of work! But it has truly been a labor of love to discover new voices along with new poems from familiar voices. I present them to you here alphabetically by author, with the exception of the proem and coda.
In these pages you will find poems about a wide range of jobs, from coal miners to caregivers, farmers to flight attendants, union organizers to Uber drivers, engineers to exterminators, teachers to tech workers, artists to athletes, doctors to dunking booth clowns. You will also find the work of nonhumans—bees, voles, meerkats, birds, earthworms, donkeys, whales, dolphins, and dogs—along with the natural world itself in which “a little earth pushes up/ a little plant life also.”
You’ll read about unemployment, discrimination, incarceration, unsafe working conditions, and chattel slavery. You’ll also discover humor, tenderness, joy, pride, and appreciation for those who “[show] up/ again/ again/ again.”
Thank you to all contributors for their “work work.” Thank you also to editors Mark Danowsky and Louisa Schnaithmann for premiering this collection as a special Labor Day issue of ONE ART: a journal of poetry.
I will close with these words from Ruben Quesada’s “Poetry Is Bourgeois”:
On the way home from work
On the northbound train
I heard a young woman say
Poetry is meant for the rich
Poetry is for the privileged
Poetry is for those who can spend
Time to write words meant for change
It is a life carelessly spent
Writing. This is a lie.
This anthology is dedicated to all workers and to the memory of my “Grampa Jim” (1923-2008), who is honored in “Elegy for the 30-Year Career.”
Erin Murphy
Editor, The Book of Jobs: Poems About Work