Working Words
Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Coffee House Press
Published:2nd Dec '10
Currently unavailable, our supplier has not provided us a restock date
250 galleys for bookseller, librarian, and media outreach Excerpts distributed through the Consortium Galley Box Promotion through Facebook and Twitter Tour plans include labor conferences nationwide Endorsers (potential): Bruce Springsteen, Arlo Guthrie, Tom Frank, Joshua Ferris Academic and library marketing and conference promotion Advertising: Mother Jones, The Nation, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly Editor web site: www.mlliebler.com Co-op available
Poets, rock stars, filmmakers, activists, novelists, and historians lend their voices to this landmark collection about the daily grind."M. L. Liebler is the poet laureate of America’s working class. The collection he has assembled rings out with truth, intensity and love. In a world full of despair, it is comforting to have writers so gifted and generous singing our song of rebellion and hope. This book is the kind of spark we need these daysa rich, intense and inspiring collection for and about those who get their hands dirty every single day."Michael Moore This book is not fresh-air.’ It is a mighty wind. . . . While the nightly news continues to do the numbers,’ as if we were all investors, here’s the larger partthe real grit and savor of American life. Spelled out in plain English.”Peter CoyoteFrom the White Stripes' "The Big Three Killed My Baby" to Eminem's "Lose Yourself"; from the folk anthems of Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie to the poems of Walt Whitman and Amiri Baraka; from the stories of Willa Cather and Bret Lott to the rabble-rousing work of Michael Moorethis transcendent volume touches upon all aspects of working-class life. A collection about living while barely making one, about layoffs and picket lines, about farmers, butchers, miners, waitresses, assembly-line workers, and the "Groundskeeper Busted Reading in the Custodial Water Closet," this is literature by the people and for the people. Contributors include: Amiri Baraka Bonnie Jo Campbell Willa Cather Andrei Codrescu Dorothy Day Emily Dickinson Diane di Prima Bob Dylan Eminem Woody Guthrie Allison Adelle Hedge Coke Lolita Hernandez Philip Levine Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Bret Lott Thomas Lux Thomas Lynch Michael McClure Michael Moore Mark Nowak Edward Sanders John Sayles Quincy Troupe MIck Vranich Diane Wakoski Jack White Walt Whitman . . . and many more.
Acclaimed poet M.L. Liebler inherited a blue-collar outlook on life that helps drive his tireless efforts to promote the literary arts in metro Detroit and encourage other writers . . .. A labor of love . . . A powerful, eclectic assortment.”Detroit Free Press Unabashedly political. Tea-partiers beware. Working Words delivers more than 500 pages of unadulterated and unabridged working-class word art. . . . A heavy anthology . . . which suits the mission of Working Words just fine.”Detroit Metro Times In this watershed time when so many technological, geopolitical, and financial forces are eradicating American jobs and dismantling the old blue-collar world, writer and activist Liebler presents a mammoth, high-voltage anthology of American poems, songs, memoirs, and fiction about work and working-class lives.-Booklist "The value of an encyclopedic book like this one is that readers get a flavor for how writers have told their personal stories of working-class existence through multiple literary forms. The poems, songs, and stories are meant not just to celebrate the written form but also to speak to the importance of how creative writing contributes to the lives of the poor and working class."Labor Studies Journal
“Acclaimed poet M.L. Liebler inherited a blue-collar outlook on life that helps drive his tireless efforts to promote the literary arts in metro Detroit and encourage other writers . . .. A labor of love . . . A powerful, eclectic assortment.”—Detroit Free Press “Unabashedly political. Tea-partiers beware. Working Words delivers more than 500 pages of unadulterated and unabridged working-class word art. . . . A heavy anthology . . . which suits the mission of Working Words just fine.”—Detroit Metro Times “In this watershed time when so many technological, geopolitical, and financial forces are eradicating American jobs and dismantling the old blue-collar world, writer and activist Liebler presents a mammoth, high-voltage anthology of American poems, songs, memoirs, and fiction about work and working-class lives.-Booklist "The value of an encyclopedic book like this one is that readers get a flavor for how writers have told their personal stories of working-class existence through multiple literary forms. The poems, songs, and stories are meant not just to celebrate the written form but also to speak to the importance of how creative writing contributes to the lives of the poor and working class."—Labor Studies Journal
- Winner of Michigan Notable Books 2011
ISBN: 9781566892483
Dimensions: 234mm x 165mm x 35mm
Weight: 878g
470 pages