A poem is a beautiful thing, teaching us to see the world differently, ornamenting common sentiments with elegant turns of phrase. For Labor Day, these two poems take a different tack. By stripping down everyday work to its elements, they highlight the beauty in everyday work and workers. Gas station attendants and window cleaners, as much as writers and coders, do meaningful work.
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“For years, Ann has been reading Robert McCrum’s series for Guardian Books, the 100 best novels written in English. He did an earlier list in 2003, available here, but has updated and modified his list more recently. Ann writes that “ What’s magical about his collection is less what he chooses than how much effort he goes into chronicling why a particular selection has made his list. Mixing current and classic, British, American and beyond, his series is a literary walk through a carefully curated library, complete with synopses, analyses and personal insights.”
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Reading, writing and discussing poetry has the power to open windows in life-changing ways, giving readers the freedom to tell their own stories and view themselves as capable learners and contributors. Our current partnership with the East Cleveland Municipal Court and From Lemons to Lemonade (FL2L) bring Books@Work to a group of single mothers and other women whose lives rarely afford them the opportunity to read, let alone reflect.
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The festivities surrounding National Poetry Month reminds us that poems can speak to us in ways that few other things can, capturing fleeting moments or complicated emotions on their own terms. A first encounter with a poem can be difficult. But like so much in reading, peeling back the layers of the text to see new things reveals new meanings and new ways of seeing the world. Tight and taut, the poem invites scrutiny, gives space for reading and re-reading, encourages self-examination alongside reading, urges engagement — also the hallmark of the Books@Work learning experience.
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As Americans prepare to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is worth remembering the long tradition of poetry dedicated to national identity. The best of this poetry is both challenging and affirmative, declaring, as Walt Whitman does in “I Hear America Singing,” “the varied carols” of each person “singing what belongs to him and her.” Such literature beckons us to what Lincoln called a “more perfect union.”
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Athletic victories do not come easily, as we all know. Performing requires countless hours of practice, conditioning, and hard work. In his 1854 Walden, Henry David Thoreau made an impassioned plea for what we might call the athletic reading of challenging books. For many people, Thoreau is remembered as the lone cabin-dweller enjoying direct contact with nature. If we remember Thoreau only for his ecological consciousness, however, we miss one of the most compelling defenses of active literacy in American literature.
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