Vox Populi
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Ryan Eckes: memo for labor
you cannot separate the job from the house from the rent from the earth from the food from the healthcare from the water from the transit from the war from the schools from the prisons from the war from the water from the house from the healthcare from the war from the transit from the schools from the food from the job from the prisons from the rent from the earth
Copyright 2018 Ryan Eckes. From General Motors (Create Space, 2018)
Ryan Eckes’ (b. 1979) narrative-driven poetry is, in his words, “a possible form of history:” a way to document the voices and conditions of urban life. He characterizes his writing as “deeply investigative” and “documentary-like.” Eckes’ book Old News (Furniture Press, 2011) weaves newspaper articles from the 1920s with his neighbors’ personal accounts of life in South Philadelphia in a series of poems that run between lyric and narrative. In Valu-Plus (Furniture Press, 2014), Eckes continues his examination of Philadelphia, as he imaginatively makes use of corporate language, workplace correspondence, and other non-poetic texts, “in search of free expression and experience,” he says. (from Pew Center for the Arts)
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Oh, how I love this powerful memo!
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Me too!
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Usually, when I hear or read of connections (other than internet, haha), they are positive, teamwork in action, coming together for the common good, etc. it’s interesting to see another set of connections between dysfunctions and destructiveness of various sorts. Things we are up against, rather than working towards. Awareness is keen. I’m going to share this poem with my friend who’s in the local Carpenter’s Union. thanks
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Thanks, Jim. This poem strikes me as an example of how a poem can contain an insight about society as a whole, an experience that goes beyond the personal. Most poets write lyrics or narratives about individual lives. This poem shows us the underlying structures that affect our lives.
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It’s good to be reminded of the interconnectedness of all things, including body, heart, mind, soul; past, present, future; the wild, the feral, the tame; urban, suburban, wilderness; earth, moon, sun, stars, and the entire universe, bound by forces I don’t come close to understanding.
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Yes, Ryan has succinctly traced the connections.
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Thank you for this. It is exquisite. It echoed through my mind, my body.
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Mine too!
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