Enjoy These 10 Great Poems About Work!
Need a few poems to read for Poetry at Work Day, or any day at all? Check out these 10 great poems about work. Then maybe write a few of your own.
1 • I Hear America Singing • Walt Whitman
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or
at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows,
robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
2 • Boss • Glynn Young
Stares at the corner where
two glass walls meet, almost
the exact point where the sun
sets, caught in the rise
of his people asking, probing
how and more and the descent
of his own boss seeking cuts.
He chooses the way
he’s been taught, looking
upward, knowing there’s little
reward in the daily, where
life is.
3 • Sending Flowers • Hannah Stephenson
The florist reads faces, reaches into the mouths of customers.
Turns curled tongues into rose petals,
teeth clinking against one another into baby’s breath.
She selects a cut bloom, a bit of leaf,
lays stem alongside of stem, as if building a wrist
from the inside. She binds them
when the message is right, and sighs at the pleasure
of her profession. Her trade:
to wrangle intensity, to gather blooms and say, here,
these do not grow together
but in this new arrangement is language. The florist
hands you a bouquet
yanked from your head, the things you could not say
with your ordinary voice.
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I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl—
Life’s little duties do—precisely
As the very least
Were infinite—to me—
—Emily Dickinson, #443
My mother’s mother, widowed very young
of her first love, and of that love’s first fruit,
moved through her father’s farm, her country tongue
and country heart anaesthetized and mute
with labor. So her kind was taught to do—
“Find work, ” she would reply to every grief—
and her one dictum, whether false or true,
tolled heavy with her passionate belief.
Widowed again, with children, in her prime,
she spoke so little it was hard to bear
so much composure, such a truce with time
spent in the lifelong practice of despair.
But I recall her floors, scrubbed white as bone,
her dishes, and how painfully they shone.
— Rhina P. Espaillat, author of Where Horizons Go
5 • Self-Employed • L.L. Barkat
She is always asking
for more.
More hours making words,
more days finding
the things she loves—
people, art, a good font.
But she gives me
chocolates.
How can I say
no?
Their authority did not unfold
from ironed white shirts and thin ties
or from the funereal seriousness that struck
their acne-splashed faces but because
they stood heir to our native faith in light.
So we followed the thin white waver
of beams they pointed down aisles
to seats we never thought of refusing.
It was the first job I wanted,
especially after birthday outings
far from home showed me the glowing
outfits worn by big-city ushers, their get-ups
a blend of doorman and military dictator,
as gaudy and fine as the plots
of movies my Saturdays were swallowed by.
None of us knew, as they took us
into the artificial light of the cinema,
that they walked the path of the pin setter,
the blacksmith or elevator operator,
professions reduced to curiosity
by wandering time. Only in the quick steps
of floor salesmen, the slim backs of hostesses
bringing us to our tables, do they remain,
the artful flutters of their flashlights lost
in dark we are left to find our own way through.
— Al Maginnes, author of Film History
The overseer of meats
at Mehlman’s Cafeteria
would plate a slice of meatloaf
when he saw my brother in line.
The morning window woman
at Community Bakery
knows without asking: cinnamon
doughnut, coffee with cream.
When the angry woman in the wheelchair
sends back her eggs on Christmas Eve,
the night manager who remembers
I had a blueberry waffle last time
cracks two in a bowl, takes
the whisk from the cook
and beats ’til fluffy, teaching,
“This is how she likes them.”
— Laura Lynn Brown, author of Everything That Makes You Mom
8 • The Beauty of a Strip Mall
is the beauty of a minor
dream turned quietly
aside at the end of the day,
the beauty of the small,
impossible ledgers recording
hope against subtraction and finally
closed with a sigh.
Every unremarkable donut shop
is somebody’s act of faith,
and somewhere between almost and
never quite, in the last miles
of aging neon and plastic
backlit signage, here
too is poetry, where the books
will someday be balanced and the future
is always a bargain, everything
ninety-nine cents.
— Richard Cole, author of The Glass Children
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9 • Night Shift: Fruit Cocktail
Boiled until they slipped their skins,
the peaches slid down, then rolled
along the conveyor belt to the splitter
and on to me, una gringa loca, a pitter.
I grabbed, gouged, grabbed again. Hot
wafts of syrup made skin sticky, gluing
hair nets to hair, but unable to seal
earplugs from the din of six hundred
thousand jerking cans of tin. Truckloads
of green grapes tumbled through shoots
as cherries churned in vats of gruesome
dye. We women all wore white and stood
on the wet floor for eight hours or more,
ankles swelling over our orthopedic
shoes. Still, after decades of a better
life, I miss that moment when the dawn shafts
pierced steam, when a certain slant of light
gave drudgery such a celestial gleam.
— Susan Kinsolving, author of The White Eyelash
10 • The Snow Globe Repairman
Crawford looks at his hands with their knuckles like tectonic
plates, cradling a seeping globe that encloses
the Pyramids of Giza. Like his wife’s breast
and the frayed head of the old retriever. So much
the same, how they fit within his palm. In a glass
cupola, vees of geese tilt north past New York City,
the Peace Arch and hula girls sway in a slurried snow.
They all come to him here; every dreamt destination,
every journey’s souvenir lies unwrapped, nested in
a newspaper from Poughkeepsie or brown parchment.
What a woman wants to preserve of the grotto at the Bay
of Conca Dei Marini rests in a tangle of pliers and glue,
tubes of glitter in gold, silver, and the occasional blue.
He knows something of purity’s formula, can mix up water
sweet enough not to cloud or green. He examines a curve
for imperfection, a flaw like a mar on a peach that needs
the tender knife. And although this particular day he enters
the workshop more slowly, and cups heat first in a fist
to limber up stiff joints, he recalls well enough
similar evenings when the light was going, when she waited
for him to finish. How her voice traveled across the field
as she called him home for dinner. They spoke of Paris
at the orchard gate. He stretches tendons for the delicate
work of repair, heaven’s dome fixed securely above.
—Anne M. Doe Overstreet, from Delicate Machinery Suspended
More Work Poems
Mowing • Robert Frost
What Work Is • Philip Levine
Po’ Boy Blues • Langston Hughes
Calling Him Back From Layoff • Bob Hicok
The Secretary Chant • Marge Piercy
The Instruction Manual • John Ashbery
More Resources on Poetry and Work
Taking Poetry to Work: A Few Good Tricks (3 simple ways to bring poetry to work)
Poetry at Work Day Infographic (don’t miss the chicken and the chocolate chips)
10 Great Articles on Poetry and Work (contests, Wall Street, blacksmithing, cubicle haiku and more)
Photo by Mudgalbharat, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by L.L. Barkat.
Buy How to Write a Form Poem Now
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Maureen Doallas says
Wonderful selections!
L. L. Barkat says
Thanks, Maureen. 🙂
What do you plan to do for Poetry at Work Day?
Marcy Terwilliger says
Sending Flowers by Hannah Stephenson
Reaches into the mouths of customers. Turns curled tongues into rose petals. The entire poem is so beautiful as you select each piece until it’s finished, baby’s breath, a bit of a leaf. This poem touches my mind of memories, those of one simple bridal bouquet made for my daughter-in-law and the pleasure of her smile.
Marcy Terwilliger says
Each day at work comes different for me.
There’s a book waiting
Challenge me with a prompt
Photo’s on the camera
Need a love touch
Love drawing fashion gowns
Color’s in greens and pink
Spending time with the Father,
Watching his birds dance.
Listening to the cats talk
As birds eat bread crumbs outside.
Waiting for Spring to come.
Looking for wild onions
Seeking out the sun
Warming up my body
Not ready for a run.
Lift our thoughts
Make us whole
Winter go away.
Green spring
Smell the grass
Buds on trees,
That’s my kind of day.
Gonzalinho da Costa says
A good poem that I might suggest would benefit from a minor edit. See the typos?
Christine Guzman says
Reasons to Work
Not everyone in circumstances
to work jobs they love
nor could we be provided
with all the goods and services
that provide life’s necessities
if this was every worker’s philosphy.
Other reasons to carry on:
providing a living for self and family,
allowing pursuits of outside interests:
developing their creativity,
time for volunteer work, ability to travel,
funding their own or children’s,
spouse or siblings education,
have a lifestyle that gives enough
attention to their significant relationships
of family and friends.
Many in repetitive jobs in food, services or products delivery
have esteem in knowing they
are providing necessary services to society,
enjoy the contact with others, working in a team
or the clients they interact with,
may appreciate the closeness of their workplace to their home,
take pride in the way they do a quality job with attention to detail,
appreciate the feedback they get.
Even people in jobs they love
can find the peripheral costs of staying
take over any enjoyment they once had
long working hours, unrecognized efforts,
frustrating systems,less autonomy,
coercive bosses,
less pride in making a difference.
(will be part of book – Vignettes on Life from birth to one Hundred and Two)
Gonzalinho da Costa says
I like it.
Marcia Neu says
US Poet Laureate and long-time insurance executive Ted Kooser wrote at least one other favorite poem about being at work, “They tore off my face at the office:” https://books.google.com/books?id=tYx8AQAAQBAJ&pg=PT95&lpg=PT95&dq=they+had+torn+off+my+face+at+the+office&source=bl&ots=pzPrDVMwTC&sig=KJMlFina5KljDpx2nzoZRxqz7Vk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CC8Q6AEwBGoVChMIoseWpvOjyAIVDOuACh2lTAxl#v=onepage&q=they%20had%20torn%20off%20my%20face%20at%20the%20office&f=false
Marcia Neu says
Oops – guess I didn’t get Ted Kooser’s title quite right: “They Had Torn Off My Face at the Office”
L. L. Barkat says
oh my 🙂
Gonzalinho da Costa says
Another great poem about work, one of my favorites:
TO BE OF USE
by Marge Piercy
From Circles on the Water (1982). © Alfred A. Knopf.
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
Gonzalinho da Costa says
Another excellent ekphrastic poem about work:
EDWARD HOPPER’S OFFICE IN A SMALL CITY
by Victoria Chang
At this link: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/251484/victoria-chang-edwardhhopper/
Gonzalinho da Costa says
Another poem about work by the same title and by the same author at this link:
http://www.nereview.com/back-issues/vol-33-1-4-2012-2013/vol-33-no-1-2012/victoria-chang-edwardhhopper/
EDWARD HOPPER’S OFFICE IN A SMALL CITY
by Victoria Chang
The man could be the boss or could have a boss the man could have a
heart or could not have a heart the man is not working should be working
should be making profits not in fits but constantly the man looks out over
the yellow building over everything he must be the boss must be someone
significant because he is constant is above everything maybe the man is
deciding who to fire who to lay off who to slay with a fire maybe he is deciding
who to hire who is the best liar but the man doesn’t smile doesn’t smell the
flowers below or look at the people walking in the streets or the cars honking below
the man sits and stares at the shapes of vents on the roof of a building rearranging
them people are just shapes a circle for a head rectangles for the body and arms and
legs this man’s head over this woman’s body this woman’s head with another
man’s legs maybe the man is looking at the horizon wondering why a plane in
the sky is pointed downward towards the morning glories or the okra plants in the
meadow or a building with five sides
Comment: This second poem I prefer over the first.
Gonzalinho da Costa says
Poetry Magazine version at this link: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/251484
Gonzalinho da Costa says
diode version of the poem by the same title and by the same author at this link:
http://diodepoetry.com/v6n1/content/chang_v.html
First time I’ve seen three versions of a poem by the same title and by the same author. I wonder if there are more?
L.L. Barkat says
Thanks for all of these, Gonzalinho. You are a “version” appreciator? 🙂
Gonzalinho da Costa says
I can understand that artists will sometimes create several versions of the same motif, it’s common in the art world. I don’t always like all the versions. In the case of Victoria Chang’s ekphrastic poem, I really, really like the New England Review version. The rest are sort of OK.
L. L. Barkat says
It reminds me a little about the issue of translation. Our young writer here (see the literary analyses onsite, by Sara), has really strong favorites for translations of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey, for example. And I enjoyed Jane Hirshfield’s chapter on translation in the book ‘Nine Gates.’ There’s such a directional difference with the slightest word change sometimes. It’s fascinating, when you think about it, how much is conveyed in a single word.
Gonzalinho da Costa says
I wish I could sit down, drink tea, browse your website, chat with you about poetry and related things. I am so busy today, and the next day and the next, it isn’t often any better. Time is an inexorable river carrying us all downstream to this mysterious body of water rapidly approaching. At this time for better or worse all I can do is wave at you while I bob around in my inner tube.
L. Myers says
Heard the poem once, in a sermon. Hope it is the one you have. Must have, very catchy.
Thanks for sharing.