What Things Cost: An Anthology for the People

by Rebecca Gayle Howell (Editor), Ashley M. Jones (Editor), Emily J. Jalloul (Editor)

What Things an anthology for the people is the first major anthology of labor writing in nearly a century. Here, editors Rebecca Gayle Howell & Ashley M. Jones bring together more than one hundred contemporary writers singing out from the corners of the 99 Percent, each telling their own truth of today's economy.

In his final days, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for a "multiracial coalition of the working poor." King hoped this coalition would become the next civil rights movement but he was assassinated before he could see it emerge as the Poor People's Campaign, now led by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. King's last lesson―about the dangers of dividing working people―inspired the conversation gathered here by Jones and Howell.

Fifty-five years after the assassination of King, What Things Cost collects stories that are honest, provocative, and galvanizing, sharing the hidden costs of labor and laboring in the United States of America. Voices such as Sonia Sanchez, Faisal Mohyuddin, Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Silas House, Sonia Guiñansaca, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Victoria Chang, Crystal Wilkinson, Gerald Stern, and Jericho Brown weave together the living stories of the campaign's broad swath of supporters, creating a literary tapestry that depicts the struggle and solidarity behind the work of building a more just America.

Genres: Poetry, Essays, Nonfiction, History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published March 7, 2023

About the author

Rebecca Gayle Howell is an award-winning writer, translator, and editor. Her Best Book of the Year honors include those from Best Translated Book Awards, Foreword Reviews INDIES Awards, The Banipal Prize, Ms. Magazine, Library Journal, Book Riot, and Poets & Writers. Among Howell's awards are the United States Artists Fellowship, the Pushcart Prize, the Carson McCullers Fellowship, and two winter fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.

Reviews

[sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is not a light read. i know it’s not supposed to be, but it is heavier on the mind that i expected. there’s some amazing poetry here and the selection is very well thought. also, it was nice to read the regulars (victoria chang, joy harjo, ocean vuong, natalie díaz, etc) and i loved to have found more poets from the diaspora / immigrants. some of the poems were beautiful and funny and others were just terribly moving and painful.

[Amanda Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is a collection that models the poetry of small moments, big efforts, long shifts, & deep sighs. These poems are not made of grand gestures so much as second glances at everything we take for granted, whether that's a sore muscle, a second job, or a familial sacrifice. I could speculate why another reviewer described this anthology as "uneven"--a lot of strong forms & political contexts rubbing shoulders here. But isn't the workday - economy - country uneven? Here is a many-voiced read that doesn't perform optimism, leaving room for dignity in work even as it imagines a better world. I wouldn't call it uneven. I would call it wrestling-with-this-world. Read this one if you want to see abstractions made concrete, the ends held up to often-invisible means, & all the ways we already depend on one another.

[Wes Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first became aware of Jones' work when I moved to Alabama in August. I am quickly becoming a huge fan of her work. This is my first encounter with Howell, and I am looking forward to reading more from her. This entire collection is beautiful. It has so many talented voices and I cannot recommend it enough to readers, particularly labor educators or literature teachers. Kudos to the University Press of Kentucky for bringing it to us, the reader.

[Mira Sturdivant · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some impactful and beautiful works in here, although it took me a while to get used to how uneven the collection is. Very long read best enjoyed in small bursts!