home

= = =Preface= Philip Levine is our current poet laureate and certainly deserves this title as well, with his unique writing style that puts the reader into the poets eyes so the reader can feel how the poet feels. He writes "gritty, fiercely unpretentious free verse about American manliness, physical labor, simple pleasures and profound grief"(poetry foundation). The great accomplishments Levine has achieved throughout his poet career are numerous like "The Names of the Lost" (1975), which won the 1977 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets. Philip Levine writes about interesting topics that intrigue you and force you to want to find the deeper meaning. Levine's story, starting in depressed Detroit in the 1930's and ending in California where he currently resides, is a true Cinderella story that should inspire everyone who is trying to living in harsh situations.

media type="custom" key="13415760" align="center"

What Work Is by Philip Levine

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. You love your brother, now suddenly you can hardly stand the love flooding you for your brother, who’s not beside you or behind or ahead because he’s home trying to  sleep off a miserable night shift at Cadillac so he can get up before noon to study his German. Works eight hours a night so he can sing Wagner, the opera you hate most, the worst music ever invented. How long has it been since you told him you loved him, held his wide shoulders, opened your eyes wide and said those words, and maybe kissed his cheek? You’ve never done something so simple, so obvious, not because you’re too young or too dumb, not because you’re jealous or even mean or incapable of crying in the presence of another man, no, just because you don’t know what work is.