Ground Work

by Michael Daley

A mainstay of northern Cascadia poetry, Michael Daley brings us poems written in the last five years but covering a great many more. He begins with a focus on physical labor in the context of unemployment, hitchhiking and freight trains, goes on to recall events from being a worker on boats, a tree-planter, construction laborer, and finally visiting poet and teacher. The poems move toward a ‘grounding’ that perhaps comes with age, and a ground on which to stand, nodding toward, among other topics, the frustration many conservationists and anarchic environmentalist poets find themselves facing.

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First published October 10, 2025