Poetry as Social Practice in the First Person Plural: A Dialogue on Documentary Poetics

Abstract

Mark Nowak is a documentary poet, social critic, and labor activist, whose writings include Shut Up Shut Down and the recently published book on coal mining disasters in theUS andChina,CoalMountain Elementary. Nowak’s poetry engages central issues of work, family, and community. His verse play on Reagan’s firing of striking PATCO air traffic controllers, “Capitalization,” has been staged at theaters (Stage Left in Chicago, the Cleveland Public Theatre) as well as rallies for striking Northwest Airlines mechanics. He is one of a dozen poets included in the seminal anthology American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics. Nowak’s unique work, which brings innovative aesthetics and working-class communities into dialogue, has resulted in a dynamic array of projects and publications. Following a model he designed at Ford plants in the United States and South Africa (through the UnitedAutoWorkers and the National Union ofMetalworkers of SouthAfrica), Nowak’s transnational worker-to-worker poetry dialogues create a unique opportunity for working people to analyze, communicate, and express (through poetry) their ideas and emotions about their work, particularly in workspaces experiencing the effects of downsizing, plant closings, worker-management tensions, and strikes. He is currently Director of the Rose O’Neill Literary House atWashington College. Philip Metres is the author of numerous books, including To See the Earth (poetry), Come Together: Imagine Peace (anthology of peace poems), Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront since 1941 (criticism), andCatalogue of Comedic Novelties: Selected Poems of Lev Rubinstein. His poetry has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry and Inclined to Speak: Contemporary Arab American Poetry. He has been