this is what the cotton truck driver does: this is what the tobacco leaf roller does: this is what the washer-woman & the laundry worker does: this is what the grape & artichoke worker does: not to mention the cucumber workers — not to mention the spinach & beet workers not to mention the poultry woman workers not to mention the packing house workers & the winery workers & the lettuce & broccoli & peach & apricot & squash & apple & that almost-magical watermelon & the speckled melon & the honey-dew the workers this is what they do:
notice: how they bend in the fires no one sees notice: their ecstatic colors & their knotted shirts notice: where they cash their tiny & wrinkled checks & pay stubs: stand in that small-town desert sundries store then walk out they do & stall for a moment they do underneath this colossal tree with its condor-wings shedding solace for a second or two notice: how they touch the earth — for you
"Contemporary lyric poetry is replete with myth. Personal micro-myths, stories of the self and its significant encounters, are favoured over the big, foundational mythologies, although there are also many revisionist treatments of the classic stories, letting in new light from new social and political contexts. In this week’s poem, Laura Scott begins a story whose title might seem to point towards Genesis and a retelling of the myth of the Fall. But it’s not as simple as that."
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“'The Wake of Maria De Jesus Martinez' was one attempt to write, as form, a casta-like poem, where each section of the lyric was itself of a different time and space, yet, linked through repeating phrases. As the lyric progressed, the work began to be less 'pictorial' and relied more and more on sound: the emotional labor of the poem was performed/rendered through its music."
