''Working Classics: Poems on Industrial Life'' is a landmark literary

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...

of American

working-class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

poetry written during the second half of the 20th century. The book identifies within post- World War II

American literature American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also inc ...

an emerging trend: a new poetry about mills and mines and blue-collar neighborhoods. Much of this verse was inspired by the postwar industrial prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s followed by rapid

deindustrialization Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry. There are different interpre ...

in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. The anthology offers nearly two hundred poems by seventy-five poets, most of whom are of the baby boomer generation. The collection was conceived and compiled by

Peter Oresick Peter Oresick ( ; September 8, 1955 – September 3, 2016) was an American poet. Oresick was best known as the editor of '' Working Classics'', a landmark literary anthology of working-class poetry, and as a publisher. He served in senior posi ...

and further developed with co-editor

Nicholas Coles Nicholas Joe Howard Coles (born 1947 in Leeds, England) is a British-American scholar in working-class literature and composition studies, and is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Pittsburgh. Life He holds BA and MA degrees fr ...

, both of the University of Pittsburgh. This "new work writing," argue the editors, "has its antecedents not with the

proletarian literature Proletarian literature refers here to the literature created by left-wing writers mainly for the class-conscious proletariat. Though the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' states that because it "is essentially an intended device of revolution", it is ...

of 1930s, but more with Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, the Beats, and Confessional poetry." ''Working Classics'' is frequently used in U.S. and Canadian university courses in literature and labor history. It remains in print since its first publication in 1990 by the University of Illinois Press. The anthology's strong critical reception and sales, as well as a prompt within a book review of ''Working Classics'' by

Fred Pfeil John Frederick Pfeil (1949–2005) was an American literary critic and novelist. Pfeil (pronounced "file") was born September 21 in Port Allegany, Pennsylvania. He earned an undergraduate degree at Amherst College in 1971 and an M.A. at Stanford Uni ...

in The Village Voice, spawned a sequel in 1995 by the same editors called '' For a Living: The Poetry of Work''. This companion volume features poems about the nature and culture of nonindustrial work in the current Information Age or service economy, i.e. work that may be categorized as

white collar White collar may refer to: * White-collar worker, a salaried professional or an educated worker who performs semi-professional office, administrative, and sales-coordination tasks, as opposed to a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor ...

, pink collar, clerical, or professional.

Selected Poets in ''Working Classics''

Maggie Anderson Maggie Anderson (born September 23, 1948) is an American poet and editor with roots in Appalachia. Education and beginning of career Anderson attended West Virginia Wesleyan College from 1966–68 and earned a bachelor's degree in English, wit ...

Antler Antlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) family. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. They are generally found only on male ...

· Robert Bly ·

Jim Daniels James Raymond Daniels (born 1956 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American poet and writer. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, the writer Kristin Kovacic. Life and work Daniels was on the faculty of the creative writing program at Carnegie Mello ...

Patricia Dobler Patricia Dobler (June 18, 1939 – July 24, 2004) was an American poet and winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry. Life Patricia Averdick was born in Middletown, Ohio on June 18, 1939, and completed her BA in political science at St. Xa ...

Stephen Dunn Stephen Elliot Dunn (June 24, 1939June 24, 2021) was an American poet and educator who authored twenty-one collections of poetry. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 2001 collection, ''Different Hours,'' and received an Academy Award i ...

· Tess Gallagher ·

John Giorno John Giorno (December 4, 1936 – October 11, 2019) was an American poet and performance artist. He founded the not-for-profit production company Giorno Poetry Systems and organized a number of early multimedia poetry experiments and events, inc ...

· Donald Hall · Edward Hirsch · Richard Hugo · David Ignatow · June Jordan ·

Lawrence Joseph Lawrence Joseph (born 1948 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American poet, writer, essayist, critic, lawyer, and professor of law. Early life and education Lawrence Joseph was born in 1948 in Detroit, Michigan. Joseph's grandparents, Lebanese Mar ...

· Philip Levine ·

Robert Mezey Robert Mezey (February 28, 1935 – April 25, 2020) was an American poet, critic and academic. He was also a noted translator, in particular from Spanish, having translated with Richard Barnes the collected poems of Borges. He was born in Philadel ...

Lisel Mueller Lisel Mueller (born Elisabeth Neumann, February 8, 1924 – February 21, 2020) was a German-born American poet, translator and academic teacher. Her family fled the Nazi regime, and she arrived in the U.S. in 1939 at the age of 15. She worked as a ...

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ...

Ed Ochester Edwin Frank Ochester (born September 15, 1939 Brooklyn, New York) is an American poet and editor. He was educated at Cornell University, Harvard University, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Currently he is a core faculty member of the B ...

· Jay Parini ·

Kenneth Patchen Kenneth Patchen (December 13, 1911January 8, 1972) was an American poet and novelist. He experimented with different forms of writing and incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which have been compared with those of Will ...

Vern Rutsala Vern Rutsala (February 5, 1934 – April 2, 2014) was an American poet. Born in McCall, Idaho, he was educated at Reed College (B.A.) and the Iowa Writers' Workshop (M.F.A.). He taught English and creative writing at Lewis & Clark College in Portla ...

Michael Ryan Michael or Mike Ryan may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Michael M. Ryan (1929–2017), American actor best known for his role as John Randolph on ''Another World'' * Rocky Ryan or Michael Ryan (1937–2004), British media hoaxer * Michael R ...

· James Scully · Gary Soto · Susan Stewart ·

Tom Wayman Thomas Ethan Wayman (born 13 August 1945) is a Canadian author. Born in Hawkesbury, Ontario, Wayman has lived most of his life in British Columbia. He studied at the University of British Columbia (BA 1966), and the University of California, I ...

· James Wright ·

Robert Wrigley Robert Wrigley (born 1951 in East St. Louis, Illinois) is an American poet and educator. Biography In 1971 Wrigley was inducted into the army, filing for discharge as a conscientious objector. He received his M.F.A. in Poetry from the Universi ...

References

* *{{cite book , editor=Coles, Nicholas and Peter Oresick , title=For a Living: The Poetry of Work , location=Urbana and Chicago , publisher=University of Illinois Press , year=1995 , isbn=0-252-06410-0

External links

Look inside ''Working Classics'' at Google Books
1990 poetry books American poetry anthologies Working-class literature