Winner of the National Book Award in 1991
“This collection amounts to a hymn of praise for all the workers of America. These p... read full description
“This collection amounts to a hymn of praise for all the workers of America. These p... read full description
reviews
Nov 17, 2011
Denae
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Amazing. What Work Is is one of my favorite poems, and the book itself is filled with dozens of others that might as well be. Philip Levine has a perfect knack for capturing experiences that I think are common to, or at least feel common to, most people. I've now read this twice and will read it again, probably multiple times. I cannot say I have ever felt anything more than passing interest when someone was named Poet Laureate, but that changed when Philip Levine was named this year. I will def
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Oct 29, 2011
Ben
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The poems here largely remind me of a scene in Steve McQueen's film Hunger in which a man mops the hall of the cell block. Watching the scene, it's like he's starting at the end of the hall and (given the slow-core poetic of the film) you're damn sure the camera will follow him down the whole hall. So at the beginning it's a groan. Then it's boring. Then something happens just passed half way down the hall. This guy's mopping is like saying something really difficult to put into words. And, then
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Jan 17, 2012
Jsavett1
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This is our current Poet Laureate's most well known collection. Part one is comprised of the kind of poems which have defined Levine's oeuvre, hymns to the blue-collar, paeans to the downtrodden. If Bruce Springsteen had never picked up a guitar and had been raised in Michigan, he would have written this book. But I have to say something sacrilegious: I don't feel that Levine's poems about "what work is" are his strongest. Saying so feels the same to me as saying anything not glowing and thankfu
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Feb 01, 2011
David
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This was one of my favorite collection of poems when it was first published and I began taking poetry seriously. I am not a narrative poet at all, but these are the poems I wish I could write, if I had been a story-teller. Tough and spare in style (I couldn't help but notice how all of his lines end with hard nouns), skeptical of ideas and authority, and masterful in the way Levine recollects and lays out the personal, formative narratives of his youth and beyond (and, by the way, also those aro
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Dec 22, 2011
Nicholas
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Right here is a collection to put hair on yer chest!
Of all the Philip Levine books out there, I feel like I started with the most stereotypical. All the reviews of his work highlight the gritty, working man quality of his writing, and I grabbed the book that’s almost entirely devoted to those slices of blue-collar labor.
I’m not much of a poetry enthusiast, but for my poetry writing class I had to pick a poet and make a presentation about their work. Since the poets I actual More...
Of all the Philip Levine books out there, I feel like I started with the most stereotypical. All the reviews of his work highlight the gritty, working man quality of his writing, and I grabbed the book that’s almost entirely devoted to those slices of blue-collar labor.
I’m not much of a poetry enthusiast, but for my poetry writing class I had to pick a poet and make a presentation about their work. Since the poets I actual More...
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Jan 21, 2012
Those who have read the poems that Philip Levine has produced in his thirty years of writing know that perhaps no other living poet has earned so fully the right to tell us "what work is." The various "grease-jobs," as he calls them, held in his native Detroit in his earlier days have provided him through fifteen books with a wealth of material that he has transmuted into fierce and gritty praise songs of the dignity of human labor. Levine's poems, in this new collection and
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Jun 12, 2010
Valerie
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Everyone knows the title poem in this collection. It's a great poem. I decided to read this after hearing this poem read by Levine on Poetry Magazine's website. It reminded me that I should read some more of his poems.
It is hard to write a review of someone as prominent and well-liked as Levine, especially when it is the old work that made them famous, and especially when you think that he's great too. We pretty much all agree: he's wonderful. He sculpted Contemporary American Poetry More...
It is hard to write a review of someone as prominent and well-liked as Levine, especially when it is the old work that made them famous, and especially when you think that he's great too. We pretty much all agree: he's wonderful. He sculpted Contemporary American Poetry More...
Dec 17, 2011
Courtney
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Beautiful working-class portraits from the current poet laureate. Phillip Levine is a joy to read.
From "The Right Cross"
We rise, drop our faces
in cold water and face the prospect
of a day like the last one from which
we have not recovered...
fight for nothing
except the beauty of their own balance
the precision of each punch.
I hated to fight. I saw each blow
in a sequence of events leading
finally to a winner and a loser.
Yet I
From "The Right Cross"
We rise, drop our faces
in cold water and face the prospect
of a day like the last one from which
we have not recovered...
fight for nothing
except the beauty of their own balance
the precision of each punch.
I hated to fight. I saw each blow
in a sequence of events leading
finally to a winner and a loser.
Yet I
Sep 07, 2008
Michelle
rated it:
There’s an astonishing reverence for the tedious, repetitive work of the “common” laborer in Levine’s poems. He ignites the reader’s awareness of the everyday experience of human beings normally overlooked, raising those lives we take for granted to the level of something beautiful and sacred. Through hardcore detail and gifted insight, the poems soar beyond the stories they set out to tell. His narratives are full of surprising turns and revelations. They tend to be long and epic in proportion
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Sep 18, 2011
Patricia
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Was reading a new one so I thought I'd revisit this, which I read in 94. Really love some of the moments here, ""the new elm unleaved/ in public, shuddering with the ache of its growing." "Johnny was dead on an atoll/without a name." My favorite poem, the last, a first line I must borrow: " How could I not know God had a son?"
Nov 19, 2011
Logan
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If not for some gorgeous imagery and nice turns of phrase I'd be tempted to call his writing style 'prosaic' because much of it is plainspoken. Only about half of these got under my skin, but when they did, they were resonant, such as the title poem "What Work Is." (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/what-work...)
Jan 22, 2009
Mike
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This collection of poems transformed my life. Levine's ability to expose grandeur through the purportedly mundane will inspire you to see life for what it truly is: hard, dirty, unlucky, magnificent.
Jan 18, 2010
James
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A wonderful collection of poems from a great poet, who captures real life and real issues in beautiful language and stunning clarity. Highly recommended.
Dec 16, 2009
Jordan
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a really great poet originally from the east coast, however taught and lived in fresno for many years. he gets the central valley. he gets it good. beautifully calm voice, reads in long stanza form. the poems are almost like small vignettes, each a sort of story, reaching back or ahead into the still moments of time passed or maybe to come...handling, examining everying gingerly, with wise hands
favorite poems: fire, growth, agnus dei, gin.
favorite poems: fire, growth, agnus dei, gin.
Jun 29, 2008
Tom
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"You have begun to separate the dark from the dark."
This line from "M. Degas Teaches Art & Science at Durfee Intermediate School" hints at the depths of Levin's poetry.
Suggestion: Check out Diego Rivera's famous "Industrial" murals, at Detroit Institute of Art while reading this book.
This line from "M. Degas Teaches Art & Science at Durfee Intermediate School" hints at the depths of Levin's poetry.
Suggestion: Check out Diego Rivera's famous "Industrial" murals, at Detroit Institute of Art while reading this book.
May 16, 2011
Sandy
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Wonderful dark, rich poems, full of burning and smoke, mind-numbing day jobs, wax-paper wrapped sandwiches, trains and bottle caps and gin and abandoned houses and kids staring out the windows of elementary schools. Many of the poems are about Detroit.
Mar 15, 2008
Karli
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"You don't know what work is." Philip Levine's poems reconnect me to my working class background. They draw up all the emotion and struggle of survival. Confessional, autobiographical, and somehow universal...
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Dec 17, 2009
Steel
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This is a beautiful collection of sensitive, full hearted working-class poems. Read them. One of my favorites is a poem about Bobby Hefka. I can't remember the title exactly, but it's one of my favorites of all time.
Oct 26, 2007
Al
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One of the best by one of our best poets. He won the Pulitzer for THE SIMPLE TRUTH because the committee was so embarrassed at not choosing this one. A terrific book. Absolutely fine and true.
Sep 10, 2008
If you own one book of contemporary poetry, this should be it. Great wit, insight, and depth. Ordinary language reveals extraordinary truths. And, in places, funny as hell.
Jul 27, 2010
Aaron
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Even if you don't usually read poetry, this is an amazing book that talks about the significance work has to an individual.
Nov 15, 2007
Mike
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The title poem is enough, but then there's M. Degas. The rest is a joy, taken as a whole.
Sep 04, 2008
Julene
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Wonderful read by a wonderful poet. This man is deeply wise, he has mentored many.
Dec 17, 2009
Gary
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I like Levine. I think he and Hicok would write kick-ass collabrative work.
