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What Work Is
What Work Is is a collection of poetry by Philip Levine that explores subjects characteristic of his work, including physical labor, class identity, family relationships, and personal loss. Much of the book is shaped by concerns for blue collar workers as well as national political events. The focus on work and the working class has led to the collection being read through the lens of Marxist literary criticism.
What Work Is was first published in 1991 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in New York. This poetry collection won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1991.
"I believed even then that if I could transform my experience into poetry I would give it the value and dignity it did not begin to possess on its own. I thought too that if I could write about it I could come to understand it; I believed that if I could understand my life—or at least the part my work played in it—I could embrace it with some degree of joy, an element conspicuously missing from my life."
Major themes in the collection focus on the American working class. Many characters are vivid representations of American workers employed in blue-collar jobs. Settings include plumbing and plating factories, brass factories, automobile manufacturing plants, as well as neighborhoods in Detroit. The poetry finds its power as Levine reveals the inner lives of his characters, mostly blue-collar workers, but also artists, readers, and academics. According to Daniel Gyillory, Levine's poetry is accessible and moving and utterly American.
The poems in What Work Is are subtle in their thematic construction. Levine avoids creating caricatures, instead presenting real blue-collar workers, representing a station of life not commonly the subject of contemporary American poetry. This helps place the collection within the tradition of working class poetry. The poems feature different types of work, some of which reflect the actual work experience of the author. For instance, the poems "Fear and Fame" and "Growth" are direct accounts of two of Levine's jobs as a young man. "Fear and Fame" is based on a job Levine had cleaning out and refilling acid vats in his mid twenties. "Growth" is about the job Levine held at a soap factory at the age of fourteen. Many of Levine's poems are based on his experience growing up in Detroit. The title poem, "What Work Is", is based, for example, on Levine's experience waiting in a Detroit employment line. "The Right Cross" is related to a boxing teacher who taught Levine to defend himself while growing up in Detroit.
Besides work, love is a major theme of the book. For instance, "What Work Is," written for his brother, addresses not only issues of work but also the difficulty of expressing love. Often the theme of love is introduced in a understated way, secondary to the dominant theme of work.
The cadences of many poems in the collection are simple free verse. The rhythm and dictation of much of the collection is normal and easily accessible. Though "What Work Is" takes on many sophisticated subjects such as death, love, loss, and struggle, the collection maintains an easy-to-access feeling. Levine's work in this collection is not to obscure or make grandiose, but instead to reveal and show plainly matters that are important. Levine's structures and word choices reflect this mood of his poetry as he rarely uses complicated punctuation or rhythms. Instead of using highly symbolic words or imagery "What Work Is" tends to contain direct images and a more direct and perceptible intention. This use of strong and stable syntax allows one to perceive the people and places in the collection without getting caught up in the construction of the poems. Levine's intention is more of a narrative one, for the reader to get caught up in the images of the poem rather than the words.
Much of the work done on Levine's poetry is Marxist literary criticism. Because the subject matter and Levine's focus on work, Marxist criticism seems to be the most fitting. Rumiano proposes a Marxist reading of much of Levine's work in a dissertation. Rumiano analyzes many of Levine's poems and work in a Marxist manner as it relates to the working class characters that appear in Levine's poetry. Most notable are the concerns with the power struggles of the working class, working conditions, and how a life as a worker relates to a politics of living.
What Work Is
What Work Is is a collection of poetry by Philip Levine that explores subjects characteristic of his work, including physical labor, class identity, family relationships, and personal loss. Much of the book is shaped by concerns for blue collar workers as well as national political events. The focus on work and the working class has led to the collection being read through the lens of Marxist literary criticism.
What Work Is was first published in 1991 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in New York. This poetry collection won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1991.
"I believed even then that if I could transform my experience into poetry I would give it the value and dignity it did not begin to possess on its own. I thought too that if I could write about it I could come to understand it; I believed that if I could understand my life—or at least the part my work played in it—I could embrace it with some degree of joy, an element conspicuously missing from my life."
Major themes in the collection focus on the American working class. Many characters are vivid representations of American workers employed in blue-collar jobs. Settings include plumbing and plating factories, brass factories, automobile manufacturing plants, as well as neighborhoods in Detroit. The poetry finds its power as Levine reveals the inner lives of his characters, mostly blue-collar workers, but also artists, readers, and academics. According to Daniel Gyillory, Levine's poetry is accessible and moving and utterly American.
The poems in What Work Is are subtle in their thematic construction. Levine avoids creating caricatures, instead presenting real blue-collar workers, representing a station of life not commonly the subject of contemporary American poetry. This helps place the collection within the tradition of working class poetry. The poems feature different types of work, some of which reflect the actual work experience of the author. For instance, the poems "Fear and Fame" and "Growth" are direct accounts of two of Levine's jobs as a young man. "Fear and Fame" is based on a job Levine had cleaning out and refilling acid vats in his mid twenties. "Growth" is about the job Levine held at a soap factory at the age of fourteen. Many of Levine's poems are based on his experience growing up in Detroit. The title poem, "What Work Is", is based, for example, on Levine's experience waiting in a Detroit employment line. "The Right Cross" is related to a boxing teacher who taught Levine to defend himself while growing up in Detroit.
Besides work, love is a major theme of the book. For instance, "What Work Is," written for his brother, addresses not only issues of work but also the difficulty of expressing love. Often the theme of love is introduced in a understated way, secondary to the dominant theme of work.
The cadences of many poems in the collection are simple free verse. The rhythm and dictation of much of the collection is normal and easily accessible. Though "What Work Is" takes on many sophisticated subjects such as death, love, loss, and struggle, the collection maintains an easy-to-access feeling. Levine's work in this collection is not to obscure or make grandiose, but instead to reveal and show plainly matters that are important. Levine's structures and word choices reflect this mood of his poetry as he rarely uses complicated punctuation or rhythms. Instead of using highly symbolic words or imagery "What Work Is" tends to contain direct images and a more direct and perceptible intention. This use of strong and stable syntax allows one to perceive the people and places in the collection without getting caught up in the construction of the poems. Levine's intention is more of a narrative one, for the reader to get caught up in the images of the poem rather than the words.
Much of the work done on Levine's poetry is Marxist literary criticism. Because the subject matter and Levine's focus on work, Marxist criticism seems to be the most fitting. Rumiano proposes a Marxist reading of much of Levine's work in a dissertation. Rumiano analyzes many of Levine's poems and work in a Marxist manner as it relates to the working class characters that appear in Levine's poetry. Most notable are the concerns with the power struggles of the working class, working conditions, and how a life as a worker relates to a politics of living.