Shift Notes: Workers Are Sending in Poems Now
A few entries from the poetry desk of Shift Notes.
Workers have been writing poetry about work for a long time. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, labor newspapers regularly ran poems sent in by miners, machinists, garment workers, and farmhands—sometimes on the same pages as strike reports. The IWW printed verse and songs in its famous Little Red Songbook, the pocket-sized collection of organizing music carried by Wobblies across the country.
Joe Hill, the Wobbly organizer who wrote songs for the IWW, mocked preachers who told workers to accept misery now and hope for reward later: “You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.” Coal miners in Britain filled union papers with verse about life underground; the Scottish miner and playwright Joe Corrie was one of many pit poets to come out of that world. And in the United States, the garment worker and organizer Morris Rosenfeld published poems about sweatshop labor in Yiddish newspapers.
Plenty of poets outside the labor movement wrote about work too. Langston Hughes wrote poems about cooks, porters, domestic workers, and people trying to make rent during the Depression: “I am the worker / The whole world waits on my labor.”
The tradition never disappeared. Work these days produces a lot of decidedly not-poetic writing—incident reports, customer scripts, HR emails—but it does still occasionally produce poetry. And people have started sending me some of those poems, so here are a few.
migrant worker poem
Listen to your cousin.
Don't say Moldova. Poland, no. Don’t say that.
If you say Italy maybe they will love you.
Moldova, where is that? They know Italy.
They don't know its poor too, but they know it.
Listen to your cousin.
She feels secure, like me.
For the next two years, really, really secure.
Basically untouchable.
I have never taken.
I am a good immigrant. Not like the others.
There are too many immigrants here.
At home, too many too.
I make money here and I spend money here.
The balance is the same.
I’m really secure.
The citizens here, they don't want to work, they don't want to do those jobs.
They want to be supervisor thats all.
They know they need us.
Don't ask them to say please.
I am Madam why would I say please, they will say.
Don't say Victoria Road. They will say you live with Roma.
Drugs, dirty, selling children, I never go there, they will say.
Listen to your cousin.
Don't ask for things. Don't be like Felix.
When the boss says, we will donate the tips, don't say anything.
Felix said, I will take all my money tonight, and then everyone took.
Now Felix is gone.
It is better to shrug your shoulders. It is better to wait.
When the boss says, we are not employees and boss, we are friends, say yes.
Pray for them. Pray for their family.
They are higher than you and they can sack you so you pray and say yes.
They would drink your blood if they wanted to.
You will get used to it.
You cannot change them.
You are like your cousin. Made of hard stuff.
You are like me. You have no limit.
You will meet your son when you have already grown old.
This is in your blood.
Those blue veins on your calves, those are worker veins.
They would siphon them dry if they wanted to.
Don't question it.
Pray that they are not thirsty.
Your body will learn.
Even if it won't walk, it will work.
You can live off of chicken necks.
You can live like a dog.
You smell like dead fish.
Its in your skin and in your fingernails.
It won't kill you.
Say thank you.
They count the sweets you take from the boss's dish.
Your name is "Faster" now.
You answer to it when screamed.
Don't talk to anyone. Don't complain.
Don't freak out. Don't lose control.
Don't let them see.
Be proud. You have the ass for this.
You won't want to go back home.
The more days here, the more you want to stay.
Those are my advice. Soon you will feel secure too.
Soon you will not exist.grandpa
97 years old
they’d just put him on hospice
he was still ordered breathing treatments
a comfort measure
so i put the mask on him
the room was full of family, different generations
when he was done and i took the mask off
we all noticed a disturbing development
no breathing
we quietly but frantically listened and poked
searching for signs of life
the family swelled around me, the questions frenzied
clearly he hadn’t had much time left
but i didn’t want to be the one kicking him out the door
after two minutes—an abrupt GASP
still breathingafterwards i told my fellow therapist about it
“yeah,” she said, “i’ve been in that room the last couple of days
that family is a whole lot”
i said, “you think so?
you should see what happens when you kill grandpa”4:45
i could give him ten breathing treatments
he’s still 84 years old
struggling to breathe at 4:45 in the morning
i could give him twenty treatments
he still has CHF
jamming the right chamber of his heart
flooding his lungs
he’s not drowning in it, not yet
but every breath is a squat thrust
i sit with him at 4:45 in the morning
administering useless medicine
watching Ice Truckers, shooting the shit
it’s not lasix, which is what he needs to flush the fluid
but i’m good company and so is he
and that will have to be therapy enough
at 4:45 in the morninghuman nature
let me ask you
you’re sitting in a hospital room
visiting a friend or mother or son in a critical care bed
an alarm is triggered, an ominous warning
you nervously step outside looking for a nurse
you tell the nurse “there’s something beeping”
the nurse comes inside and fixes the occluded line
you nitpick about the time it took
you question procedures as the nurse is doing them
advocating for the patient
the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?
yeah but guess what
the nurse doesn’t want to come into the room anymore
whether you’re in there or not
the vitals will still be seen to
but other patients suddenly need more attention
and by the way
every time you ask me if i washed my hands
(like the posted signs advise you to ask)
i think: if you’re that worried about infection
i’ll just stay out of the room; that much less exposure
that means painful bedpan delay for your loved one
or lying in filth a little longer
waiting thirsty minutes for that sip of water
staying in one excruciating position half an hour moreso have you done your friend or mother or son a favor?
P.S. I think I can still count on two hands the total number of submissions to this project; thank goodness the people who have written in have offered great stuff. However, I urge you to rectify the situation by sending your own notes at alexnatashapress@gmail.com. People want to read what you have to say! More on what to write here.