Working on the work of poetry

Poets Lauren Levin, Steve Farmer, Alli Warren, and Brandon Brown have started a blog called the Poetic Labor Project, which will post short essays on the relationship between poetry and work, and the work of poetry. So far the site hosts writing from Anne Boyer, Tyrone Williams, and Lara Durback. You can download a PDF of all three essays, or just read them on the blog. Boyer’s post is more poetic and impressionistic, Williams’ is more theoretical, and Durback takes on the personal. So far, a variety. From Boyer’s piece:

Because I decided to get as many jobs as I could and work these jobs in between sleeping and eating and caring for my child, I wanted, also, to build muscle and then more muscle, eat lean protein, and lose all intrusions of language or imagination or whatever it was that distinguished a poet from anyone else. This is not the first time I had to quit like this, but with all of these jobs I could eventually begin to see my hamstrings. I learned to do the reverse prone jacknife, and though later I understood it was a question of "How much poetry can I remove from me?" at the time it was a question of numbers, each hour accounted for in a notebook devoted to the accounting of hours.