Scraping Away

by Fred Shaw

In this debut, full-length poetry collection, Fred Shaw offers a deep dive into the cost of service work. Scraping Away is a collection of narrative, sometimes elegiac poems that express the point of view of restaurant workers. Shaw considers the cost, not just in dollars, of feeding a starving public that often finds those in the service industry to be faceless and replaceable. The poems here hope to celebrate and humanize those 102.6 million workers. Exploring issues of class and labor, profit, loss, and privilege, Scraping Away reminds us that a person is more than just their job.

The speaker in these poems also explores complicated family relationships and the angst of his blue-collar, Rust-Belt adolescence. Poems delve into the speaker’s relationship with his parents, often using music and the world of things as a trigger to reflect and express memory. Scraping Away leans on clear language and an imagistic sensibility to bring readers into the community of restaurant workers and their inner lives. Reminiscent of Studs Terkel’s classic, Working, Shaw’s collection passes the issues of the working class into the realm of poetry.

88 pages, Paperback

Published April 7, 2020

Reviews

[Timons Esaias · Rating 5 out of 5]

At a recent Bob Walicki poetry reading I got to hear Fred Shaw read as well. I've heard Fred read short sets a few times over the years, and liked an occasional poem, but he hadn't made my A-list. This time, however, the themes were clearer, the poems tighter, and I decided I'd better buy a book.

This was that book, and Mr. Shaw is now on my A-list. Like Bob Walicki's work, this is poetry straight out of the working class life, and not poured into a sermons-cum-lesson form.

The title poem is my second-favorite, and one thing I noticed as I read through this first time was that most of the poems seemed to slide into the next one, rather than making me stop to study each poem by itself. Which is a symptom of a unified vision, I would say.

I'll be getting to think about that issue some more, because I've put this volume on my small stack of Read These Regularly poem collections.

My favorite poem on this first read-through was the last one, "The Communicants," which is the perfect ending poem for this kitchen-worker-themed collection.

Recommended.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fred Shaw's first collection of poetry intertwines stories of blue collar food service work with poems about his volatile childhood. Gritty and honest, this book gets extra points as my hometown of Warren, PA, makes a surprise appearance in one of his poems. A very important book for these times!

[Lord Booktopus von Cephaloid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really captures the grit and raw beauty of the blue-collar working class life without resorting to Bukowski-esque wankery (and I say that as someone who loves Bukowski-esque wankery).

[Brendan King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fred Shaw finds ways to make sticky table tops, rusty car doors, and sketchy parking lots bywords for a Pittsburgh upbringing.

I found the collection to be thoroughly charming, and would be first in line to set my eyes on anything new from Shaw.