LABOR

by Jill Magi

Jill Magi’s new book―comprised of fiction, poetry, and archival research―LABOR explores relations between workplace and workers, race-class-gender, the institution and the body, the “personal” budget and the economy, the archive and undisciplined paper trails. An “employee handbook” sequence runs throughout the text, providing a set of directions for ritual practices toward individual agency and workplace/worker transformation. But unlike the archived ideologies and hopes of traditional labor history that LABOR’s characters eventually abandon or never fully embraced, the transformation does not look like traditional progress or reform.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2013

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feels like Karen Brodine crossed with Susan Howe but also its own paired down, elliptical narrative thing alert to the labor of researching labor movements among the twin pressures of patriarchy & austerity in higher education. Struck by the passages that describe weathering and framing alienating documents to make them real, to make them a history someone will hurry up, study, and speak. Still thinking over what the Seneca Village material is doing, if its enough.

"I return to the archive to ask for more milk for more linear feet and the librarian instructs:"

"Question: How to define poverty? Did I mean poetry? / This is about a good job."

[Marije de Wit · Rating 5 out of 5]

It begins:

‘Work,
as cultural expression,

day as unit of,
distinction between, and hobby,

distinction between, and leisure,
distinction between, and slavery,

domestic,
domestic, as resistance,

domestic, devaluation of,
as gendered practice,

(…)

depression and,
sense of well-being and,

stagflation.
See also underemployment.

See also relief workers.
Rubber workers,

steel workers,
- black,

numbers in mines and mills,
relations with white workers’

and so on. After the book ends, we’re informed that the language in this beginning poem sequence

“is gleaned from the indexes of the following books: The American Social History Project’s 𝑊ℎ𝑜 𝐵𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑡 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎: 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑃𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 & 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛'𝑠 𝐸𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑦, 𝑃𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑠, 𝐶𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 & 𝑆𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑡𝑦, 𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝐼𝐼; 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑟'𝑠 𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠: 𝐵𝑒𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑑 𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 edited by John Galagione, Doris Francis, and Daniel Nugent; 𝐿𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒, 𝐿𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑆𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑤: 𝐵𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑊𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛, 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦, 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑆𝑙𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡 by Jacqueline Jones; Robin D. G. Kelley’s 𝐻𝑎𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐻𝑜𝑒: 𝐴𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑎𝑚𝑎 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝐷𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐺𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝐷𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑅𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑠: 𝐶𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒, 𝑃𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑠, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐶𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠; and Paul Krugman’s 𝐸𝑛𝑑 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝐷𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑁𝑜𝑤!”

The rest of the book is as resourceful, and confrontational in all the right ways. I will read this many more times.

[Cori Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Librarians, faculty, Art (performance?), Central Park & the struggles for meaningful, and gainful employment.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be required for anyone and everyone in academia, teachers and students alike.

The book jacket calls it "Fiction/Poetry," which seems like dangerous territory to dive into, but it is a fiction, yet is also purely poetry. Its narrative unfolds in threads that also have an eye and ear to song with each seam.

Courageous. Devouring.

Jill Magi for president in 2016!

[Jared Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

The archive upon which this fiction is based