Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams

(Paperback)

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"M. L. Liebler is the poet laureate of Americas 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, heres the larger partthe real grit and savor of American life. Spelled out in plain English.Peter Coyote

From 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.

Reviews

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

Author Bio

M. L. Liebler is a poet, literary arts activist, and community organizer who has read and performed his work internationally. A teacher at Wayne State University, he is also the founding director of both the National Writers Voice Project in Detroit and Springfed Arts: Metro Detroit Writers Literary Arts Organization. He was selected as Best Detroit Poet by the Detroit Free Press and Metro Times, and his many awards include a Paterson Poetry Prize for Literary Excellence and the Barnes & Noble Poets & Writers Writers for Writers Award, an honor shared with Maxine Hong Kingston and Junot Daz.