Poetry Radio Project
A working man's poet
Poet Philip Levine used to work the line at GM, which may have inspired his poetry about the blue-collar masses. Kai Ryssdal speaks with the Pulitzer Prize winner about how his experiences shaped his poetic works.
Poet Philip Levine (famouspoetsandpoems.com)
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TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Kai Ryssdal: April is National Poetry Month. So for the next couple of Mondays we're going to be looking at and listening to the poetry of all things economic. Money and work, commerce and labor, almost anything you can attach a value to.
Philip Levine grew up in industrial Detroit. He worked on the assembly lines at General Motors as a young man. His experiences there have fed a lifetime of writing about the blue-collar economy. And when we spoke, I asked him to read one of his poems about not getting a job. So here's Philip Levine and "What Work Is."
PHILIP LEVINE:
We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is.
Ryssdal: You start this poem, the second or third line you say, "you know what work is, if you're old enough to read this, you know what work is, although you may not do it." And then you end with "because you don't know what work is." What does that mean? How do you make that transition from knowing to not knowing in the sense of this poem.
LEVINE: Ah, that's the poem. If you'd listen to the poem carefully, you'd know the answer. Yeah, you know what work is abstractly. Right. I say to you, "Hey, do you know what work is?" Sure. But do you really know what work is? Especially this kind of work. No you don't know what it is. It's not an abstraction for people working on the line, let me tell you.
Ryssdal: What do you think of now when you read the problems that GM and Chrysler are having and then the problems that that is causing for all the folks who having been working for those companies for 35 or 40 years.
LEVINE: It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. I mean, because there was a myth, of course, that these companies could never perish. And that their promises would be made good. Right now, I'm an older guy, you know, I'm 81. And what would happen to me if I lost my pension from the California State University system and Social Security. I mean I'd be out on the streets like these people might be.
Ryssdal: What is it about good, solid, difficult blue-collar work that so resonates?
LEVINE: I suppose it's like reading about the Napoleonic Campaigns. It's so far from most people's experience, that is, people who do a lot of reading. It has a reality to it. It has a power because of that. At the time that I was doing it, I thought this will prevent me from becoming a poet. I will never have the time or the energy to write poetry because it was sapping to me to such a degree. And later on, when I was in my 40s, I realized, no Phil, that was the school you went to. And my whole attitude toward those years changed, so there was a way in which I realized that I had had an irreplaceable experience of brotherhood and sisterhood in those years that I was an industrial worker. And I wouldn't give them up for anything.
Ryssdal: Philip Levine. Thanks very much for your time.
LEVINE: Well, thank you. Take care.
"What Work Is," from WHAT WORK IS, by Philip Levine, copyright © 1992. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
Comments
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From Fall River, KS, 05/22/2009
I missed the day this played. I was shocked and delighted that you took my suggestion. I am so glad you sent the notice because I missed it. I just wondered how many people sugested him? Thank you, Thank you, Thank you
Carol Reed Sircoulomb
From Alameda, CA, 04/22/2009
Name one other American poet who knows what work is. And he's not talking about physical labor or mental anguish. It's the work of knowing each other as people in the line and making the care known through all these money worries and history and waiting for the right opportunity . . . This broadcast stopped me cold in the middle of my task. I know this kind of work about living and like Phil Levine for saying to the employed and disconnected interviewer, Read it again. Now that I've told you, you know what work is.
From Burlingame, CA, 04/21/2009
I loved Philip Levine's poem.
My father worked "the line" for 40 years at the Ford Motor Company in Halewood Liverpool UK.
He passed away in 1996 age 62, he had retired a year earlier.
It was a great job in many ways. He loved the camaraderie and he was a shop steward for many years.
I totally understand the " You know what work is" line.
Thanks to my father I have never "known" this type of work.
Loved the piece. Thanks
He raised 4 children and my mum has no mney worries
From Pasadena, CA, 04/21/2009
While I loved hearing Phillip Levine read "What Work is" on Marketplace, I was stunned by his initially rude response to Kai Ryssdahl's question about the meaning or the poem. Is this another case of Poets Behaving Badly? Is he trying to keep up with Paris Hilton? Levine recovered his polite demeanor before the end of the interview, thankfully.
04/21/2009
At USC, I studied under one of Philip Levine's prodigies...one semester, Levine accepted an invitation for an on-campus reading.
Afterwards, I approached the poet and asked him to sign my copy of his collected works. The copy was tattered and barely in once piece (when my car was stolen and subsequently set on fire...one of the only things that was still relatively intact was this book).
Levine takes the absurdly well-worn book and signs:
Ari,
This book has achieved the dream of all books. It has been read.
From Northampton, MA, 04/20/2009
Your story that featured the reading by poet, Phil Levine, was the perfect antidote to all the dollars and numbers usually filling the broadcast. Bravo for selecting an articulate spokesperson for the working man! Give us more poetry!
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