A Life in Words: Poetry, Labor, and the Narrative of Work

Personal History and the Discovery of Poetry

• Early Life and Environment:
    - The speaker is currently a professor of English.
    - He grew up in Valley Stream, which he characterizes as his "personal hell."
    - During his 10th-grade year, he was part of a group he describes as "young thugs" who sat in the back of the classroom to avoid being noticed.

• The Influence of Mr. Volek:
    - The speaker credits his English teacher, Mr. Volek, for noticing him. While the speaker does not remember the teacher's first name, he emphasizes the impact of the teacher's intervention.
    - Mr. Volek approached the group of "thugs" with an assignment/idea involving The New Yorker magazine.
    - Although the students were New Yorkers, they had never seen or heard of the magazine before.

• The Assignment:
    - The class was instructed to create their own version of The New Yorker magazine.
    - The physical magazine was passed down the "hierarchy of thuggery" until it reached the speaker, who was at the "bottom of the food chain."
    - Because he was last, the only section left unassigned was the poem.
    - Despite his initial disdain ("Oh, man, a poem"), the speaker took the assignment seriously because he did not want to fail English again, noting that his father "did not approve" of failure.

• The First Poem and Metaphor:
    - The speaker sat by a window and wrote a poem about the act of writing.
    - He recalls a specific line from that poem: "tiny silver hammers pounding the earth" to describe the rain.
    - This line constituted his first metaphor. At the time, he did not know what a metaphor was until someone explained it to him a few weeks later.
    - This discovery led to a love for the tactile nature of language: "banging words into each other and watching them spin around the room."

The Role of Humor and Tone in Narrative

• Humor as a Tool:
    - The speaker incorporates humor into his writing to make specific points.
    - He describes humor as a "slanted way of looking at things" that has always been part of his perspective.
    - Humor serves to balance narratives that would otherwise be "grim" or overly serious.
    - He mentions that even in poems dealing with serious subject matter, there are elements his father would have laughed at.

• Politics Through Character:
    - The speaker believes that political themes are most effective when they emerge through personalities and the characters he creates rather than through abstract messaging.

The Composition Process and the Power of the Spoken Word

• The Importance of Reading Aloud:
    - For the speaker, it is "essential" to read his work aloud during the composition process.
    - This process is highly granular, occurring stanza by stanza and sometimes line by line.
    - He views this as a private, internal collaboration with the work itself.

• Criteria for Revision:
    - If a line cannot "justify its presence" through its music or its imagery, it is removed from the poem.

The Philosophy of Political Poetry

• Avoiding Bad Political Poetry:
    - The speaker asserts that "you can write a bad poem about anything, including a political subject."
    - The difference between effective and ineffective political poetry lies in the execution: it must be done through narrative, character, image, and the senses.

• The E.B. White Principle:
    - The interviewer references author E.B. White, who advised younger poets looking for success: "Don't write about man, write about a man."
    - The speaker agrees with this sentiment, noting that writing about abstract concepts or big historical developments often fails to "land" because it lacks personal touch and intimacy.

Labor, Identity, and Personal Experience

• The Centrality of Work:
    - The speaker views work as essential to human life, providing identity and defining one's place within the social hierarchy.
    - He notes that the "poetry of labor" exists but typically does not receive the respect or attention it deserves, mirroring the lack of respect shown to the workers themselves.

• Professional History:
    - The speaker recounts a diverse list of previous occupations:
      - Bouncer in a bar.
      - Night desk clerk in a transient hotel.
      - Door-to-door encyclopedia salesman (he notes he never sold a single one).
      - Porter at Sears and Roebuck (which he describes as being a "garbage boy").

• The Sears Incident:
    - While working at Sears, one of his tasks was to stomp on garbage inside a compactor to compress it.
    - The pile was hollow in the middle; he fell through the garbage into the center of the machine.
    - Someone else, unaware he was inside, pressed the button to activate the compactor.
    - He survived only because he yelled louder than he ever had before or since.

• Writing Workshops:
    - The speaker often conducts workshops where he asks participants to write a poem about "the worst job you ever had."
    - He believes this topic reveals significant information about the individual and the reality of how society functions.

Legal Background and Creative Response to Politics

• Legal Education:
    - The speaker was trained in law and worked as a lawyer.
    - He attended Northeastern University Law School in Boston.
    - He notes that law students read more Supreme Court opinions than anyone else, whereas the general public typically reads only media accounts of these opinions.

• Responding to Current Events:
    - When asked about responding to the "gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965," the speaker explains that he does not necessarily write about news stories immediately.
    - There must be a specific "way in"—an emotional connection that is tangible, specific, and precise.

Questions & Discussion

• Interviewer's Question on Humor: The interviewer asked how the speaker decides when to incorporate humor into poems that are otherwise serious, profound, and urgent.
    - Response: The speaker explained that humor is a natural "slanted" perspective for him and is necessary to keep serious narratives from becoming purely grim.

• Interviewer's Question on Process: The interviewer asked if the speaker reads poems aloud during writing or in collaboration with others.
    - Response: The speaker emphasized that reading aloud stanza by stanza is a private and essential part of his composition to ensure every line is justified.

• Interviewer's Question on Inspiration from Work: The interviewer asked how the speaker is inspired to write about the struggles and beauty of everyday working people.
    - Response: The speaker linked work directly to identity and shared his own traumatic and varied work history, including his near-death experience in a trash compactor.