Shop talk Book

This is a useful compendium for anyone wanting to read the poetry of labor at the outset of the bleak 1980s. It is organized by different kinds of jobs'from pink collar to industrial farmwork'in a way that almost reminded me of the pluralistic portrait of America in Charles Reznikoff's Testimony. From what I could tell, the majority of the contributors are not poets with a capital "P," and the anthology is the only place they've ever published. As a result, the poems have a gruff unguarded quality that, for better or worse, feels of another historical moment'before the advent of Taylorized creative workshop polish. One of the treats is a short selection of early poems by Erin Moure. Of the two or three contributors still recognizable today, Moure is here simply identified as "waitress, cook, waitress, commercial letterer, waitress."