The Weave Room

by Michael Chitwood

The poems in The Weave Room reveal the life of a textile mill as it weathers a decisive social and human moment. Whether speaking in the voice of a weaver trying to quell a crowd about to turn violent over unionization or in his own voice as one of the mill's employees, Chitwood brings together many social and historical threads to show the pattern of a people and a place that has received little treatment in American poetry.

Genres: Poetry

92 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 1998

Reviews

[Caleb Lail · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s pretty cool I read this book when I did. I just finished reading Wiley Cash’s novel The Last Ballad, which pretty much was based on the same thing. Textile workers trying to join unions for better living conditions.

This book is pretty great! I enjoyed having a poetry book around a specific theme. The poems themselves are nice. They remind me more of short proses that were just chopped up into stanzas, but they were still engaging and enjoyable.

It would be worth two reads for sure.

[Joon · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some really wonderful poems in this book. I felt like I had met all the people he had made portraits of in here. I love the one called The Early Show, Late.

[M- S__ · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a few glimpses of something special in this collection, but much of it felt either too bland or overly sentimental.