Poetry and People’s History: Places We Called Home | Working-Class Perspectives

Who would have considered Working-Class Perspectives, a blog from the Center for Working-Class Studies, a poetry source or the Center as a patron of poets on its blog and via the Tillie Olsen Prize from the Working-Class Studies Association. After Facebook-sharing the blog post with John Crawford (West End Press), I decided, in the spirit of the WE Press, Bertolt Brecht (worth a post of his own) and Urban Verbs, to plog it too. Bryner in particular should resonate for Mountainair

Poetry is not everyone’s cup of tea, I know. Modernist poetry in particular has a reputation for being obscure and self-obsessed. But there is also a vein of contemporary poetry that speaks powerfully to our condition as a society, and much of it in recent decades has come from a working-class rather than an elite perspective.

Jim Daniels (From Milltown to Malltown) and Jeanne Bryner (No Matter How Many Windows) are exemplary writers whose poetry is rooted in the everyday experience of working people and written in ways most of us can appreciate. They convey the clear vision, emotional connections, and truth-telling that good poetry offers. And in their most recent books they illuminate local and personal histories of the times we are living through.

Read more plus excerpts from poems at Poetry and People’s History: Places We Called Home | Working-Class Perspectives