So today is Labor Day, a holiday meant to be celebrated by taking time off, but of course here it is a day in which some employees must work so that others can relax. Telling, that it is also the same day that the unemployment extension ends because nothing says workers are valued quite like forcing them to return to jobs without living wages, sick leave or health insurance in a pandemic.
Work itself becomes our sole value in a society in which purpose and others’ profits are intertwined and even our own identity fades into a job title.
The first prompt is inspired by Marge Piercy’s “The Secretary Chant.” Write a poem in which your body has transformed into your current job, or a former one. Are the lines on your forehead rows in a spreadsheet or rows of corn? Is your mouth a name tag and each hand a styrofoam cup? Try to incorporate onomatopoeia as the poet did.
For the second prompt, write a prose poem about the process of transforming into a cubicle or a screen. Do you resist, or is it a relief to slip into all that beige wall and carpet or an email inbox?
The next prompts are inspired by Gary Snyder’s “Hay for the Horses.”
For the next prompt, use the line “I sure would hate to do this all my life” as a ghostline. Remember to delete the line and credit the poet with your inspiration.
For another prompt, write about a task from your first job and what you do now, either as paid work or the unpaid labor of childcare and housework.
For the last prompt, describe your hands or another part of your body that aches or suffers bruises or cuts after a day at work.
It’s strange how the bones are indistinguishable from the rocks in the picture, but not in person.