What Work Is - Philip Levine

What Work Is

Philip Levine

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is.

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The author here takes a word, "work", and tries to define it using an experience, in this case that of your imagined brother. What does it mean to work? Really work? Is it the physical labor of people in a factory or waiting around in a line to find labor? Is it the late night shifts or the study of subjects? Or is it something more emotional - showing someone that you care for them? Through images and short narratives, the author presents to us a much more powerful definition of the word "work." It isn't a definition we could repeat with words, but we feel it nonetheless. That is the power behind this poem.

While keeping this poem in mind, its techniques and its messages, here are some prompts that you may use to write a poem:

1. Search for a word, any word, that reminds you of an experience that you or someone near you has had. What is the simple definition of that word and how well does that definition actually fit the experience? Describe the experience keeping the word in mind, maybe even trying to define the word afresh in terms of the experience.
2. The opposite can also be done: think of an experience and then write down words that can be associated with that experience. Do any of the words come close to defining the experience. Describe the experience keeping that word in mind, maybe even trying to define the word afresh in terms of the experience.
3. Take a line from this poem and use this in your poem (a title, a first line, or other). Write.
4. What else does this poem remind you of or inspire in you? Write.