What Work Is

Rating:
Summary: Levine's life work at last just is
Review: A devotion of Levine's life's work, the world of work, at last becomes one of his book's true focus and shows Levine, one of our greatest living poets, at his best. The controlled lyricism of his narratives hone in with precision, as when he pulls in on a woman's forearm at work, a minute detail in a vast world of labor to show us the universality of a struggle Levine himself has endured. While not every poem lives in the factories and workplaces, the fundamental aspect of work in our lives manifests itself in each piece. The short lines and continual enjambment gives his stanzas both the feel and appearence of quality reportage and yet are infused with an empathy and passion for his subjects that both moves and educates. This is the democratization of poetry that Wordsworth aspired to and Whitman acheived. Levine carries on in that tradtion and concretizes, with this book, his place among those American poets to be read in the next century.

Rating:
Summary: Levine's life work at last just is
Review: A devotion of Levine's life's work, the world of work, at last becomes one of his book's true focus and shows Levine, one of our greatest living poets, at his best. The controlled lyricism of his narratives hone in with precision, as when he pulls in on a woman's forearm at work, a minute detail in a vast world of labor to show us the universality of a struggle Levine himself has endured. While not every poem lives in the factories and workplaces, the fundamental aspect of work in our lives manifests itself in each piece. The short lines and continual enjambment gives his stanzas both the feel and appearence of quality reportage and yet are infused with an empathy and passion for his subjects that both moves and educates. This is the democratization of poetry that Wordsworth aspired to and Whitman acheived. Levine carries on in that tradtion and concretizes, with this book, his place among those American poets to be read in the next century.

Rating:
Summary: American Toughness
Review: It is sad that we in the United States do not appreciate the strength and the variety of the poetry that our country has produced. A major instance of a contemporary poet whose writing deserves attention from a wider readership is Philip Levine. His book, "What Work Is" won the National Book Award for poetry in 1991. He has produced an impressive quantity of poetry which, in its very restraint and poignancy, can help bring meaning to people.

This is a short collection, consisting of four untitled sections. Section III consists of a single extended poem, "Burning" which is broadly autobiographical in character. The remaining three sections consist of a number of short poems with essentially two themes: the lives of the working poor prior to WWII and Levine's experiences as a boy growing up in Detroit. The poems with these themes overlap and are interspersed throughout the book with the earlier sections emphasizing vignettes of individuals doing the ordinary, desultory jobs that are the lot of most of us (such as "Coming Close", "Fire", "Every Blessed Day" and "What Work Is") while the latter section emphasizes Levine's Detroit experiences, the toughness of being a kid, his relationship with his brother, his love of boxing, and his exposure to Anti-Semitism. ("Coming of Age in Michigan", "The Right Cross", "The Sweetness of Bobby Hefka" "On the River".)

The poems are lucidly written with understatement and a lack of sentimentality which underscores the emotions and the passions they contain. It might be useful to compare these poems to the work of three other writers.

First, the poems reminded me of Walt Whitman, in their compassion for an attempt to understand the American worker. They lack Whitman's bravura and optimism, however, and content themselves with painting harshness and with emphasizing the tenacity people need to get by.

A writer with somewhat similar themes to Levine is the under-appreciated Victorian novelist, George Gissing in his books of lower class life in Victorian London such as The Nether World. Levine has a similar sort of attraction to the life of the poor, the unsuccessful and the down and out. He has at once a sympathy for his characters and a distance from them that Gissing seems to lack, for all his portrayals and descriptions.

A third writer is the late poet-nnovelist Charles Bukowski, a favorite of "underground" readers. Bukowski writes of ne'r do wells, prostitutes, and drunkards, -- as well as doing a lot of writing about himself. Levine has some of the same attraction to the scorned of society, but his people are the working poor, and their stories are told with restraint and dignity, unlike those of Bukowski, and also unlike the work of Bukowski, with literary skill and grace.

This is a book of poetry that has both the sadness and the grittiness of life and the toughness to understand and surmount it.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful Poetry!
Review: This is my favorite book by Philip Levine. Levine has produced many fine books, and many poems that are masterpieces, and yet I believe he has outdone himself with this ingenious book.

There are poets who would gladly sacrifice large chunks of their time here on earth to be able to write a poem like the title poem, "What Work Is." This poem is astonishing in its power and its ability to make the reader feel the harshness of the work world, and at the same time begin to realize what work is, and what it isn't, and thereby uncover a well of tenderness and love that had been hidden away, unknown even to that very reader, until that moment.

"Fear and Fame" is my next favorite poem in this book, and it is a truly thrilling and moving poem, about having a soul and working in a soulless workplace. Gripping and absorbing and magnificent.

This entire book is structured for power, from beginning to end, and the reader feels empowered by it, by being made to experience and know the personal power that exists within, but apart from, the economic and societal power structures that be.

The language of this book is astonishing, and riveting. This book is a masterpiece.

This book has soul, in all the best senses of the word. Soul.

I recommend this book to everybody.