I Was Working (eBook)

Poems

Ariel Yelen (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2024
80 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-26408-0 (ISBN)

Infos

A remarkable book of poems that mixes humor about the absurdities of office life with moments of Zen-like wisdomSeeking to find a song of the self that can survive or even thrive amid the mundane routines of work, Ariel Yelen's lyrics include wry reflections on the absurdities and abjection of being a poet who is also an office worker and commuter in New York. In the poems' dialogues between labor and autonomy, the beeping of a microwave in the staff lounge becomes an opportunity for song, the poet writes from a cubicle as it is being sawed in half, and the speaker of the title poem decides ';to quit everything except work,' sacrificing her life and loved ones to bury herself in her four jobs, striving at any cost to find relief from the attempt to both have a life and be a good worker';No one was happy to see me, and so / at last I could work. No one said it's okay. It wasn't / okay, thus my work flourished.' Despite such discontents, I Was Working finds humor, play, and even joy in its original and compelling search for the possibility of self-liberation.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 8.10.2024
• Reihe/Serie: Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Lyrik / Gedichte
• Schlagworte: Air • Beauty • Birds • Blood • Boxes • Break • buyers • Capitalism • Cement • clock • Connection • cubicle • Dean • debt • Dollar • Dreams • Driftwood • effort • Field • fish • float • Flood • Fourth • free time • friend • Fruit • hole • Hole buyers • Human • Hustle • Invested violet • Job • Labor • Love • Lunch • Marble • MONEY • New York • Office • Owe • People • percent • phone • Pleasure • Poem • Poetics • robots • Screen • Sea • seagull • Smile • Snow • stacks • Stump • Sun • sweater • Taxes • Therapist • Tide • Time • train • University • Violet • Watch • Wave • weight • wonder • Work • Workaholic • Worker
• ISBN-10: 0-691-26408-2 / 0691264082
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-26408-0 / 9780691264080