Living Wages: Poems

by Michael Chitwood

Stitching a seam. Sweeping a floor. First light after working the all-night shift. These are small moments in everyday jobs, but surprisingly luminous. In his tenth book, Michael Chitwood describes hard, often dangerous labor, but renders also the quietude of housekeeping and office routines. We call this "making a living," the way we move through our days, to pay for the roof over our heads. Raking autumn leaves or drilling a dynamite hole to clear rock for a house foundation, we construct our lives. Chitwood knows that what we do today roots us in the past and becomes our future. Here is praise, as Gerard Manley Hopkins said, for all our gear and tackle.

84 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2014

Reviews

[Sean]

There's a joy in reading something well written about a facet of your life that's seldom depicted. My Southern family more or less moved throughout the course of the 20th century from being very poor to middle class; in my childhood we straddled the middle and working classes. There was a lot of light construction work, sewing, DIY for them in the, say, '60s-'70s. Stylistically not everything resonated with me personally, and some were quite lovely.

There can be this moment of.. relief? release? in seeing one's experiences and family reflected in art. It's surprising, too, like something I had no idea I was looking for till I stumble across it.

[David Anthony Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

In "Living Wages," Michael Chitwood displays Robert Frost's love of manual labor and his simplicity of language and everyday imagery coupled with depth of thought and feeling.

Something's being painted or patched.
The rattle of the handy, portable
rack of stairs is a sound like no other.
The shudder of the extension,
as one reach rides its twin
up until it's twice as long as it began.
Good work needs good assistance
and what a clever commotion this is.

There are no weak poems in this collection, no twaddle of seeking the "experimental" which too often means the inconsequential phrased as the incommunicable. Chitwood speaks cleanly and clearly and reaches the heart's muscle fiber.

[Adrian Nester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this collection that celebrates hard work of all types: seeping, sewing, ditch digging...many memorable images.

[Rissa Pappas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard work and those who work hard at it. Not the plight of the working class. Not a whining. A gentle deification. Each piece a glint of shattered glass along the railroad tracks.

[Michelle Vaughn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going about my business, reading a poem about gravel or sweeping, and then: tears streaming down my face.